Themes In The Tell Tale Heart

Edgar Allan Poe is a very famous author, and in most of his books and short stories, his themes are very dark and eerie. “The Tell-Tale Heart” is one of Poe’s most well-known works of writing that has an eerie and dark plot. The “The Tell-Tale Heart,” is a short story about a guy who dislikes an old man eye so much that he takes the effort to kill him. He loved the old man dearly, but the eye drives him to insanity. He watched the man for seven nights and would only kill the man if his eye was visible. After he killed the man on the eighth night he chopped the body up, poured the blood into jars and put the body under three floorboards. In the end when he was talking with the police because someone reported a shriek he starts to hear noises

For example, the narrator attempts to convince both himself and others he is not insane. He says, “TRUE! --nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?”(Poe 1). The narrator of the story often repeats that he is not mad. For instance he says, “Ha! would a madman have been so wise as this…(Poe 3)” His constant reassurance that he is not mad shows he is crazy because sane, normal people don't assure themselves they aren't mad. Additionally, Poe writes that the narrator can hear things from both heaven and hell. This is saying that although he has done a few good things in his life like helping the old man, there are also many things that he has done that are very sinful and insane like killing the old man just for his eye. Lastly, he is insane because of his obsessive thoughts about the eye of the old man. If the narrator was sane, he would have been able to realize that he didn’t have to kill the man to get rid of his eye, he could have asked him to put on an eyepatch or something. He dislikes the eye so much that he compares it to one of a vulture’s eye. Furthermore the narrator states, “ --but I found the eye always closed, and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye(Poe 3).” The narrator says here that without the evil vulture eye of the old man that he would be a perfectly fine nice man who would. This is

The first action that the narrator takes, making him seem crazy is when he went into the old man’s room every night at about midnight to get ready for the night that he was going to kill the man. He could and would only kill the man if the eye was visible and right before he said that he says, “And this I did for seven long nights --every night just at midnight…”(Poe 3). He also claims that he is not mad because of the precision he used to kill him. “You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded --with what caution --with what foresight --with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it --oh so gently!”(Poe 3). Again he claims he knows he not mad because of how precise he was, but what is keeping him from being sane is that there are many mad people who are able to create precise and accurate plans if they are truly after something. Another action that would make the narrator insane is that he not only killed the man and just hid the evidence but he chopped up the body and poured out the blood. As he still tries to convince you he’s not mad, he says, “If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer