Most people read a story, and don’t think about if who is telling the story is trustworthy. In “Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe people need to constantly think if they can trust the narrator. A lot of things he says does not make sense, and makes the story questionable. In the story the narrator takes care of an old man who has a “vulture” eye. The eye just becomes too much for the man, so one day he decides he is going to take the old man’s life. He acts nice for the next week, and goes in his room each night just waiting for the eye to open. On the eighth night the old man wakes up and the narrator kills him. After he stuffs the chopped up body of the old man under the floor boards.Then when the police came to his house because of a sound disturbance, he led them to where he killed the body and came clean saying that he killed the man. The narrator proves to be very unreliable, we should question everything he says. The story “Tell-Tale Heart” reveals that when people are guilty their stories become more detailed like real people …show more content…
When he killed the guy, it was because of how he looked and nothing else. For example, the narrator says, “I loved the old man. He never wronged me. He had never given me an insult.” (542). He brutally, relentlessly murdered the old man because of his eye, just his eye and nothing else. The man didn’t do anything bad to him, and there were probably many other ways he could deal with it too. Another example is when he tells the cops he slaughtered the old man. He says, "Villains!" I shrieked, "Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! --Tear up the planks! Here, here! --It is the beating of his hideous heart!"(547). He thought the cops heard the heart beating, so he thought I might as well tell them because they can hear the heart. There was absolutely no reason to tell the cops, his mind was going crazy. This shows we can't trust him because he is crazy, and he is
In paragraph 3 and 4 the narrator explains, “ And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it. . . I did this seven long night-every night just at midnight. ” This shows that he was a calculated killer because of the time he took to watch the man before killing him. It shows how the narrator thought it through. Also shows how he was going to have to study the old man's sleeping behaviors in order to have to kill him.
Upon reading a little bit into the story the reader finds that the narrator likes the old man or rather doesn’t having anything against him, except for his eye. The pale blue eye was the focus point for his rage he hates but not the old man. How can anyone just hate someone’s eye without being mentally unstable? “I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture – a...
The “Tell-Tale Heart” is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe and serves as a testament to Poe’s ability to convey mental disability in an entertaining way. The story revolves around the unnamed narrator and old man, and the narrator’s desire to kill the old man for reasons that seem unexplainable and insane. After taking a more critical approach, it is evident that Poe’s story is a psychological tale of inner turmoil.
The narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” murders an elderly man because he is fearful of the man’s “evil eye.” “He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Poe 37). The narrator explains that he is haunted by the man’s eye and the only way to
The cause of murdering the old man? His pale filmy blue eye. The old man’s blue eye is the only character trait that is emphasized in the short story. His eye, symbolizes “the eye of a vulture” to the narrator. Vultures are scavengers that wait and pray on dead animals. They are always watching and see everything in their environment. The narrator believes that the eye is always watching her. When analyzed the eye can represent the narrator’s guiltily conscious “whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold”. The narrator has been having trouble dealing with the voices she hears. As a defense mechanism she becomes paranoid of the old man’s eye. She substitutes her fear of being mentally ill and develops
The narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator realizes that he absences a reason for killing the old man he lives with. He even starts to admit having to love the man. He states, “There was no reason for what I did. I did not hate the old man; I even loved him. He had never hurt me. I did not want his money. I think it was his eye” (Poe 64). Psychosis is seen in the difficult rationality the narrator uses to defend his murder. The logic the narrator provides is that he thinks the desire to murder the old man results from the man’s eye, which bothers him. He says, “When the old man looked at me with his vulture eye a cold feeling went up and down my back; even my blood became cold. And so, I finally decided I had to kill the old man and close that eye forever!” (Poe 65). The fact that by this man’s eye is what makes him very angry is such a irrelevant reason for the narrator to kill him. This proves that he is not mentally stable, anyone in their right state of mind would not want to commit such a crime due to an irritation of someone’s eye. This represents the idea that this narrator expresses his complete lack of sanity through the premeditation and planning he put into committing the murder. In the beginning of the story, he says “vulture eye” giving the impression that he is uncertain that the eye is the reason for the murder, he also says how he thinks it’s the eye, he uses past tense as opposed to declaring with certainty that this is why the killing of the man. This shows the contrast to how as a sane person would be sure that this is their reason for killing another person before committing.
Julian Symons suggests that the murder of the old man is motiveless, and unconnected with passion or profit (212). But in a deeper sense, the murder does have a purpose: to ensure that the narrator does not have to endure the haunting of the Evil Eye any longer. To a madman, this is as good of a reason as any; in the mind of a madman, reason does not always win out over emotion.
And when the storyteller couldn't take anymore of the Evil Eye looking at him, he said, "I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever. " This is the start of the storyteller’s madness, and as the reader listens to what he says, the madness within the storyteller becomes very apparent. For eight nights in a row, the storyteller went to the old man’s chamber and cast a shred of light upon the Evil Eye that he so hated. For seven nights, it was always shut, and the storyteller could do nothing because it was only the eye that he hated, not the old man. On the eighth, the storyteller accidentally makes some noise and wakes the old man up.
Insanity. The story begins with the narrator’s wish to prove that he is sane, but from the very first words of his it is clear that he is not, and that, probably, he and his words should be taken with a great caution. A very good proof on his insanity is a desire to prove the reverse, as the more people repeat something, the less it could be trusted. The narrator’s description of the “evil eye” is very visual, it is almost possible to feel the terror he feels before it, but it is still not enough to kill a person he says he loves. The main argument of the narrator’s sanity is his description of how he killed the old man, and how he has thought of his behavior and cleaned up the murder scene: this even more proves his instability, as no person in their sound mind would find such argument to be a solid proof of sanity.
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is one of the most successful fables ever written. It took off its most fantastic details regarding the murdered man 's vulture like eye, and the long drawn out detail concerning the murderer 's slow entrance into his victim 's room, the story stays at an unforgettable recording of the guilty conscience of the man 's voice.
The reason he says he killed the old man was because of his eye. The narrator is in fear of the old man’s eye. The narrator said “whenever it (the eye) fell upon me, my blood ran cold” (41).
His logic was distorted, so to him, the murder of the old man was the only thing that could soothe his pain. He then made the decision to only kill him when he saw his eye. This took him eight days, though I’m sure he would have done it the first night if he had the chance. While he was killing the old man, he had a smile on his face. The murder of the old man was justified.One might think that the narrator needed to murder something for a reason. The reason for killing the old man was absurd, but it worked for him.
The narrator believes he is justified in killing the old man because the man has an Evil Eye. The narrator claims the old man's eye made his blood run cold and the eye looked as if it belonged to a vulture. Poe shows the narrator is insane because the narrators' actions bring out the narrative irony used in "The Tell Tale Heart".... ... middle of paper ...
Tell-Tale Heart, written by Edgar Allan Poe, depicts the inner conflict of a murderer as he retells his story of how he came to kill the old man as a means to prove his sanity. The story is told in the point of view of an unreliable narrator, of whom is greatly disturbed by the eye of a geriatric man. The eye in question is described as evil, irritating the narrator beyond his comprehension, to the point when he has no choice but to get rid of the vexation by destroying the eye. This short story is similar to The Black Cat, of which is also penned by Poe. In The Black Cat, the narrator, albeit unreliable, describes his wrongdoings to the reader. He tells his story of how he murdered his wife, killed one of the two cats, and trapped the other
The fixation on the old man's vulture-like eye forces the narrator to concoct a plan to eliminate the old man. The narrator confesses the sole reason for killing the old man is his eye: "Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees - very gradually - I made up my mind to rid myself of the eye for ever" (34). The narrator begins his tale of betrayal by trying to convince the reader he is not insane, but the reader quickly surmises the narrator indeed is out of control. The fact that the old man's eye is the only motivation to murder proves the narrator is so mentally unstable that he must search for justification to kill. In his mind, he rationalizes murder with his own unreasonable fear of the eye.