Symbolism In The Tell Tale Heart

The Evil “I”: Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart What could possibly motivate someone to kill an innocent old man in his sleep? Edgar Allan Poe proposes an answer to that question in the short story entitled “The Tell-Tale Heart”, where an insane narrator, who is convinced to be perfectly rational, murders an old man because of the unrest he feels at the sight of his vulture-like eye. Although the narrator views the eye as an evil presence, he fails to see that the eye symbolizes himself, the true evil power in the story. To begin, the narrator is haunted by the idea that the eye is evil and that he must dispose of it. At the start, it is clear that the eye disturbs the narrator: “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 413). The frightening effect that the eye has on the narrator affects him so much so that he decides to murder the old man in order to get rid of it. This shows his belief that the eye has supernatural powers and demonstrates to what extent he wants to free himself of the eye’s imposing control. Moreover, when the narrator begins stalking the old man in his sleep, he has made a complete distinction between the eye and the old man: “[…] I could see nothing else of the old man’s face or person: for I had directed

The narrator’s perception of his actions explains how someone who is insane can convince themselves that committing a violent crime such as killing someone in their sleep is justifiable. Therefore, in Poe’s “Tell Tale Heart”, the unreliable narrator’s perspective of the situation allows the reader to understand that all the evil the narrator sees in the old man’s eye is in fact a reflection of the narrator’s inner