People feel guilt after they have eaten more than they should have. Others are obsessed with celebrities and hope to become as beautiful or as rich as them, one day. Now take this further. The “next level” some would say. Edgar Allan Poe does this in his stories, “The Black Cat” and “The Tell Tale Heart.” It is through the power of obsession, guilt and paranoia in which, Edgar Allan Poe reveals how far people would go to hurt others. Obsession acts as a strong motive for crime. Edgar Allan Poe portrays obsession in “The Tell Tale Heart” through the narrator as he expresses his thoughts leading up to the murder. After the narrator argues his case to why he is not mad, he begins his story with an “idea” which “entered his brain,” which is the start of an obsession that “haunted him day and night” (2.1-2). The narrator speaks as if the eye of the old man is latching itself onto the him. Every day and night that the eye would haunt him, he would receive a better understanding to how he will overcome the eye. An obsession begins as a thought about someone or something, which is what happens to the narrator, the thought of the eye is the beginning of his obsession for it.The author satisfies his obsession “every night, about midnight” by “turning the latch” of the old man’s door and peeking his head through (3.4-7). By doing so, he got to take a look at the old man’s pale blue eye. To the narrator this eye stimulates an unhealthy obsession. His curiosity of the eye sends him back