Unraveling the Mystery: Poe's 'The Tell Tale Heart'

In the story The Tell Tale Heart by Edger Alan Poe, a murder mystery is given. The kind of murder where we know the narrator as the killer, but can't quite understand his purpose in doing so.
At first it seems the narrator is simply personifying death. He's also referring to himself as Death. The narrator is the stalker in the dark shown in the quote, "All in vain; because Death, in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim." (Poe 5) In an article titled Poe's THE TELL-TALE HEART, by: Pritchard, Hollie, Explicator "The narrator seems proud of carrying out his crime. He brags about "how healthily--how calmly [he] can tell you the whole story" (Poe 303)... it is not surprising that the narrator admits

that he "could scarcely contain [his] feelings of triumph" (Poe 304), and although he "knew what the old man felt," he "chuckled at heart" (304). He further admits that the night of the murder led him to, for the first time, feel the "extent of [his] own powers" (304). The narrator not only receives pleasure from the act of murder itself, but also from the obsessive ritual that precedes the murder." (Pritchard)
Yet the more he congratulates himself the less cautious he becomes and the closer he moves to the brink of insanity. Not content with his apparent success in convincing the authorities that the old man "was absent in the country," he invites them to stay and converse in the victim's room and even places his own chair directly over the spot where the dismembered corpse lies buried. It is these last acts of audacity that precipitate the narrator's final mental crisis and ultimately bring to a close the drama of the Evil Eye.
"First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs." (8)"And when the police knock on his door, "in the wild audacity of [his] perfect triumph" (93), the narrator boldly bids the police welcome and leads them to search the house. He takes them to visit the crime scene, and shows no respect for the dead by placing a chair atop the spot where he buried the old man's corpse."
Earlier, he refers to this condition as a "disease" – the implication being that it stems from his body rather than from his mind.

Comments like these provoke questions about how the body and mind influence each other, and about the versions of reality of the people they belong to. We know that feeling, like the way the old nerves clang after that seventh cup of coffee. The narrator obviously doesn't think nervousness is a component of madness. It also seems separate from his "disease." And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense? (6) "The Tell-Tale Heart" provides an engaging premise-the murder of a beloved old man by his housemate-and provokes readers into an exploration of the true motivation for that crime.The narrator makes reference to "the disease" that had "sharpened [his] senses" but remains firm in his question, "[W]hy will you say that I am mad?" (Poe 303). The actions of the narrator, combined with his insistence that he is not mad, lead readers to determine that he must suffer from some psychological disorder; however, it has been suggested that it is not the idea but the form of his madness that is of importance to the story (Quinn 234) Do you mark me well I have told you that I am nervous: so I am.

(7)
The narrator implies that he does not need others to form him; on the contrary, he condescendingly sees that "you" are simply wrong -- "why will you say that I am mad?" (88). Although readers immediately think that Poe's narrator is psychotic, these words actually tell us that the narrator perceives himself to be a self-positing character, with a view to installing and maintaining his own consciousness and laws. As the subject sees the other from a singular perspective, Edward Davidson rightly observes that Poe's narrator lives in a universe in which there is "no other god but the self as god" (194). In the story, the narrator clearly grounds himself as a powerful Master who can determine all values. As a result, he sees that he is sane, and that his disease is good. His disease has merely "sharpened [his] senses -- not destroyed -- not dulled them" (91). He remains an absolute Master who has an eye for the ultimate Truth, hence he can "calmly tell [the readers] the whole story" (88, emphasis added). The tell-tale heart” as evil eye event. By: Kirkland, James, Southern Folklore,
The narrator in "The Tell-Tale Heart" displays symptoms remarkably like the ones just described. His complaints about being "nervous--very, very dreadfully nervous," a condition he attributes specifically to the "Disease" of the Evil Eye; the rage stirred by the old man's eye; the narrator's metaphorical description of the eye as a "vulture," suggesting perhaps a fear of his own death; his use of words such as "hideous"; his heightened sensitivity to visual as well as to auditory stimuli; his nameless fears and night-thoughts; the heinousness of the crime; and the incessant throbbing in his brain that provokes his confession--all these are symptomatic of a deep-seated psychosis. And the more convinced he becomes of the control of the old man's eye, the more paranoid he becomes, manifesting exactly those qualities Tobin Siebers identifies in his theoretical assessment of the relationship between mental illness and Evil Eye belief: "For the mentally unbalanced individual, the eye quickly becomes an object of terror. It symbolizes the invasion of others into the perimeters of personal space" (1983:49).
Now, the "disease" he had earlier attributed to the old man's Evil Eye returns with terrifying force, intensified by the proximity of the body of his victim, the presence of the authorities, and the steadily increasing noise, "low, dull, quick," like the sound "a watch makes when enveloped in cotton." Whether the sound is the noise of the death watch beetles in the wall, as John Reilly contends (1969:3-9), or the figment of the narrator's deluded imagination or even the palpitations of his own heart, the effect is to accelerate the process of self-destruction begun much earlier in the tale. The headache, the ringing in his ears, the "heightened voice," the "violent gesticulations"--all these are symptomatic of a mind recoiling upon itself, overwhelmed by a crescendo of sound that obliterates the last vestiges of his sanity: "'Villains!' I shrieked, 'dissemble no more! I admit the deed!--tear up the planks!--here, here!--it is the beating of his hideous heart!'"
The word "stone" is repeated a third time, a few sentences later, which suggests that the word is important. This makes us think of the Medusa myth. When a person looks at Medusa and she looks back, or vice versa, the person turns to stone. This is just the kind of thing that would appeal to our narrator. . "Yes, he was stone, stone dead." (7) "I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever. (2)" The fact that the man is old, and probably near death anyway, makes this bitterly ironic. To die is one thing, but to grow old, to spend the final years hated and despised is another
Although the narrator confesses his crime, the confession comes with the intention of indicting others. In "The Tell-Tale Heart." the narrator's character is shown in the fact that he would rather give his version of the story and have his last word on everything than to let the others watch him, mock him, or define his conduct. What's more, his confessional writing denotes a pathological attempt to re-define himself, to posit himself as a victor/victim and a subject/object. The act of writing offers him the chance of "seeing himself see himself," and re-presents himself to his satisfaction. It is through writing that the narrator can launch a counter-castrating act to spurn the law and the punishment inflicted on him. If the law dooms him, he is still the narratorial master who can fascinate himself and the world.