Insanity in Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart In Edgar Allen Poe's short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" the author uses the insanity and 'knowledge' of the narrator, to intrigue us with the murder of a character. The narrator in "The Tell-Tale Heart" has a twisted idea of sanity, and believes he is sane because he thought through the process of murder. He doesn't do a very good job with proving he is sane. In the second paragraph of The Tell-Tale Heart, the narrator explains his reasoning behind murdering the old man. When he says, "I think it was his eye... Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold... I made up my mind to take the life of the old man." I laugh because your reason for murder shouldn't be simply because they look weird, or have a strange looking eye. This backs my point because he is crazy for believing that an imperfection is a reason for murder. He also says, "It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening... I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! Would a wise man have been so wise as this... For it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye." Who would take so long to look into someone else's room at them other than that of a person who is insane. These details don't prove he is insane, but it does prove he is capable of insanity. …show more content…
He hears a "low stifling sound" or groan, which he says "wells up in his own bosom" at night "when all the world slept." The narrator is hearing his own heart but believes it is the old man's. This proves that he is looking to far into a simple sound. Later he is talking about how the "vulture eye" and wide open, which he says that he "grew furious as he gazed upon it." He had known this man for quite some time but as soon as he gets better from whatever disease he had, his view of the old man changed just because of his