The Tell-Tale Heart

Edgar Allen Poe published “The Tell Tale heart” during the Boston Pioneer around the 1840s. Just like ‘The Black Cat,’’ it is a murder story narrated by the killer himself. Here, however, Edgar Allen Poe did not want to confess his crime but yearn out his “sanity”.
The dramatic short story begins with the unnamed and unreliable first-person narrator announcing a bet: ‘‘True I am nervous, very, very dreadful nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?’’ He pronounces at once that he suffers from a ‘‘disease,’’ but still implies that because it has not dulled his senses, he cannot be called mad.- The narrator explains that his mental disorder has actually caused his hearing, to become more sharp. When he claims to have heard

A neighbor had heard a shriek in the night, the police explained, and they wanted to search the home. This did not worry the narrator at all. He told the officers that the shriek was his outburst from a bad dream. The narrator led the investigating party into the old man’s bedchamber, provided chairs for them to sit, and placed his own chair directly atop the boards concealing his victim’s remains. Although he was convinced by their light conversation that the police were satisfied with his cooperation, when they did not leave, the narrator developed a headache, and then felt a ringing in his ears. He became even more anxious when the noise grew louder and was convinced that it came from outside of himself. According to the narrator, his actions began to betray him: he began to pace the floor, to race, and even to foam at the mouth. He became convinced that the police could hear the sound of the old man’s heart but said nothing, thereby making ‘‘a mockery of my horror.’’ Unable to stand the agony of being ridiculed, the narrator called the detectives ‘‘villains,’’ admitted to his crime, and directed them to the source of the sound. When they picked up the planks, they found the old man’s ‘‘hideous heart’’ still beating

“Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Main Page. Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, 24 Jan. 2009. Web. 22 Apr. 2016.
• "Edgar Allen Poe." Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2016.
• Bourguignon, Erika. "Evil eye." The Americana Encyclopedia. 1993 edition.
• Jill Lepore, "The Humbug," The New Yorker, http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2009/04/27/090427crat_atlarge_lepore, Accessed 22 April 2016
• Levine, Stuart and Susan, editors. The Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe: An Annotated Edition. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1990.
• Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance. New York: Harper Collins Publishers,