Tell Tale Heart Essay

PSYCHOTIC DO NOT TRUST. The story The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe is a story about a man who killed his customer because of his eyeball and then sold himself out as he was getting away with the murder. The narrator can not be trusted in the story since he keeps saying he is not crazy but proves he is.
The narrator is crazy as proven many times throughout the story. The text proves this on (page 47) when it states “I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him.” This proves he is crazy since he was especially kind to the old man for seven days before he murdered him. This is not normal behavior for any mentally stable person, well as he talks about it as if it did not even phase him. The text proves my thesis on (page 48) by saying

One way the short story shows this is on (page 50) it says “It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.” This is a way that the text supports the claim because the man is talking about how after he dismembered the body of the Old Man and he could still hear the heartbeat. This is an untrustworthy trait since he says he is not crazy but this says otherwise and he is lying to the reader when he says this, since he is talking about how he can still hear the old man's heart beating. Another way the story supports the claim as stated at the top of the essay is on (page 50) where it says, “First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs.” This is important evidence to the claim since he is hiding the evidence of the murder and later on it says he hides the parts under some of the floorboards. This is also an untrustworthy trait since he is just hiding them under the kitchen floorboards. These are more reasons why the narrator of the Tell-Tale Heart can not be