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The Tell-Tale Heart Interprettive Essay

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“ The Tell-Tale Heart” Interpretive Essay

“He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more.”(Poe, 1843) In the short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan, a delusional madman plans the death of and innocent old man with an “eye of a vulture” over the course of eight nights. The narrator wanted to kill the old man for only one reason, to get rid of his hideous eye. The killer is burdened with a disease in which he hears voices from heaven and hell, which is why he has a strange obsession with the victim’s eye. On the eight night, the perpetrator murdered the old man by smothering him with a heavy mattress. After the old man was stone dead, he cut his arms, legs, and head off, then buried them under the floorboards. Based on the evidence …show more content…

For instance, “I made up my mind to take the life of the old man.”(Poe, 1843) This declares that the narrator made the decision, in advance, to kill the innocent old man, proving he committed first degree murder. Not only did he state that he wanted to murder the old man, he also affirmed that “every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it.”(Poe, 1843) Despite having entered the victim’s room for 8 nights and planning the kill, the murderer did not plan the exact moment he would strike him until the old man opened his eye.”It was open-wide,wide open-and I grew more furious as I gazed upon it”(Poe,1843). In that moment, the narrator decided how he would murder the old man without it being schemed. However, while he had not predetermined his method of attack, he did know where he would hide the old man’s body after the event. For those reasons, the murder would be considered ‘first degree’. To back up this verdict, the narrator also states “I cut off the head and the arms and the legs… I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber and deposited all between the floorboards.” (Poe, 1843)The narrator killed the man callously and without remorse. Cleary, the murderer must be sentenced to prison after the gruesome atrocity he committed. Not to mention the perpetrator gloated about how prudent and acute he was. “No stain of any kind-no-blood …show more content…

His justification for the crime shows clear instability“I loved the old man. He had never wronged me… For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye!”(Poe,1843) This shows that he is mentally ill because he had no real reason or prior experiences with the man to explain why he murdered him except for that he had an ‘evil eye’. Additionally, his mental illness caused him to hear voices and sounds for example “I heard things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell.”(Poe,1843) With this in mind, it is necessary for him to be placed in care with proper medical supervision. Granted, the elderly man’s death was premeditated, but due to the outlined mitigating circumstances the narrator should not be executed. To further prove how the narrator was delusional the author wrote“My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears… it 's the beating of his hideous heart.”(Poe, 1843) The author used the old man’s heart as a way to express his guilt and anxiety. Furthermore, as the police sat comfortably in the house, the fictitious heartbeat of the killers victim rang out in his head. On the whole this is significant because being mentally ill can make you commit crimes without comprehending the

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In Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrator should not be guilty by reason of insanity. “Insanity Defense” states that a man is innocent by means of insanity if he has committed the crime because he is “unable to control his impulses” as a result of mental disease (“Insanity Defense” 1). Similarly, the narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” viewed the old man’s “pale blue eye, with a film over it” with hatred (Poe 1). When the old man’s eye looked upon the narrator, he would uncontrollably increase in fury and anger. This led the narrator to “[make] up [his] mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid [him]self of the eye forever” (Poe 1).

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The author writes, “The disease had sharpened my senses - not destroyed - not dulled them.” (Poe, 1843) This text describes that the killer has a mental disorder. Poe also writes, “‘Villains!’ I shrieked, “dissemble no more” I admit the deed! - tear up the planks - here, here!

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As a result, the narrator is insane and should not be prosecuted. To start off , the eye drove the narrator to insanity, which led him to take the life of the old man, The narrator does not know right from wrong. In the story, the narrator said that “For it was not the old man who vexed me, but his evil eye”(Poe). This quote from the passage proves that he is insane because he is deciding to kill someone over his “vulture eye”. A sane person would realize that killing someone over a eye is a silly, wrong thing

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His problems may have caused him to become a killer and lose feeling for what is right and what is wrong. Also, when the killer was waiting to make his move, he heard the heart beat of the old man, and that sound repeated itself in his brain and jacked him up to kill. The narrator tried to convince the reader that he was not a mad man over and over again. After the murder he tries again to sell us his sanity: “And now have I [narrator] not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses” (Poe 305). He truly believes, with all his heart, that chopping up another human being heightened his senses and made him a better person.

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The Tell-Tale Heart Argumentative Paragraph In the story, “ The Tell-Tale Heart ,” Poe gives ideas which could prove that the narrator is criminally insane. The narrator could be named mad for some of his many actions and thoughts. The facts supporting this include: the defendant killed the old man over his “evil eye”, he brutally murdered the man and dismembered his body, he has to remind himself that he isn’t mad even though he committed murder, and states that he hears the dead man's heartbeat get louder and louder until he confesses murder. To begin with, the defendant kills the old man he lived with over his “evil” eye. He states that it gets to him, and drives him to eventually, after the 8th night, kill him.

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The narrator 's sole reason for such murder is purely in his disturbed mind, as he develops an obsession with the old man 's eye and the plot unfolds from here where his insanity augments with the events of the story. Due to Poe’s illustrative language, various evidence can be presented to confirm the state of mind of the narrator, including, his obsession with the old man’s eye, his precision in committing the impeccable crime and finally the sound of the man’s beating heart solely inside his head. Perhaps it all started with the narrator’s obsession with the man’s “vulture eye” since he believes the eye of being evil, proving the insanity he is gravely trying to deny “I think it was

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The narrator of “The Tell-tale Heart” is a madman who does not believe he is insane but continues to show otherwise during the telling of how he kills the old man to police officers. After a week of planning the murder, he still did not find satisfactory because he could still hear the beating of the old man’s heart. Also, if one is not a madman then why would one commit such a crime just because of an eye. While the narrator explains the story of how and why he commits murder, one can conclude that some details are unrealistic throughout his story. Which leads him to come off as a psychopath because of the details and the reason behind killing the old man.

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