The Tell Tale Heart Unreliable Narrator Essay

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You sneaked into the old man’s room. The old man you took care of and loved. Knife in hand, you feel motivated, at first. Then the next, as quick as lightening, he’s dead on the floor. You feel regret and paranoia consume you, after you hide the body under the floorboards and the police come after being called by a neighbor, you hear a steady heartbeat under the floor start to quicken. In The Tell Tale Heart, the unreliable narrator lived with the man he use to take care of and loved. He got annoyed by the glass eye he had, he thought the eye could see through him and his thoughts. He planned it for 8 days how he’d kill him, so he knew what he was doing, and watched him at night. The narrator also chopped him up into little pieces and put him under the floorboards, the police came from a neighbor calling the police. He lied and made up a story so well that he wasn’t suspected, until he admit his crime to them. The unreliable narrator, in the story, is sane and needs to be punished for his crimes. One reason why the unreliable narrator is sane because he planned it out in 8 days. An insane person wouldn’t plan it for 8 days, they’d go …show more content…

“The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them.” This means that the police believed him and his made up story convinced them he didn’t commit the murder. The story he made up was, “The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country.” If he was insane his story would go on and on than being calm and logical, like he was. He kept calm longer than an insane person when the police was asking him questions and when he heard the heartbeat. Until, he couldn’t keep calm and admitted his crimes. A sane person is calm, while an insane person would ramble on and on, keeping the story going on for longer, an insane person wouldn’t keep calm like he (the narrator)