The Tell-Tale Heart Discussion Questions

"The Tell-Tale Heart"

1. After a careful examination of the narrator's testimony, please think of at least three convincing reasons we could argue the narrator never killed the old man (i.e. that no old man ever died), and that there was no actual murder. Assume there was an old man and simply look for improbabilities and "holes" in his "testimony". Have fun, play a literary (textual) investigator/detective.

• First off, we could argue that the narrator never killed the old man and that there was no actual murder due to the fact that the narrator went into the old man’s room for seven nights in a row and didn’t do anything. When he went into the old man’s room his eye was always closed so “it was impossible to do the work.” Furthermore, if he wanted to kill the old man then why did he take such a long time to go on with the process? Why did he ask the old man how he slept the past night every morning?

• Secondly, we could argue that the narrator never killed the old man and that there was no actual murder due to the fact that the narrator loved the old man. He had a problem with old mans “Evil Eye” not him

himself. We learn this in paragraph three, which states “for it was not the old man vexed me, but his Evil Eye.” Furthermore, the old man always treated the narrator right, he was a kind man, and he had a good heart, so why would the narrator kill the old man just because of his eye?
• Lastly, we could argue that the narrator never killed the old man and that there was no actual murder due to the narrator’s insanity. Seeing how the story opened up and continued on towards the end, we know that the narrator couldn’t explain himself accurately because he was hallucinating. It’s like being questioned on the show “First 48.” If your story keeps going back and forth, then no one is going to believe you. In the narrator’s case, he keeps going back and forth about how he loves the old man and how the old man never did him wrong, but then turns around saying the old man’s eye looks like a “Vulture Eye.” So therefore, the narrator can’t be trusted. Furthermore, the narrator imagines hearing the old man’s heart beat, all things in heaven and in the earth, and many things in hell. If he could imagine hearing things, then he could have imagined the old man’s death.
2. Reconstruct the sequence of the narrator's symptoms that leads to his "self-betrayal"/"self-incrimination" in the last part of the story during police "investigation."
At four o’clock in the morning, three police officers knocked on the door stating that the neighbor heard a shriek and suspicion of foul play.

The narrator then led the three men all around the house. No evidence of foul play were found. Later, the narrator chatted with the three men. Furthermore, the narrator believed that he heard the old man’s heart beating beneath the floor boards where he hid him after the crime. He felt that the old man’s heart beat grew louder and louder. He asked “why would they not be gone?” He thought he sound proofed the floor well. After questioning the heart beat sound, while still trying to have a conversation with the men, he swung his chair and opened the floor board where the old man’s body laid, but then the sound grew even louder. After praising God, he finally admitted to the crime scene and the shriek that the neighbor

heard.
"The Black Cat"
3. Even though the narrator has very fond memories of his childhood and youth, how could have those years contributed to his sociopathic personality.
In “The Black Cat” the narrator never truly learned how to love due to the things that happened in his past. He didn’t come from a “perfect home”, which we learn in paragraph one. Paragraph one states “but to-morrow I die…a serious of mere household events. “In their consequences…have destroyed me.” Furthermore, the narrator loved animals growing up. His parents always bought him animals. We learn that the narrator had “birds, gold fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat.” Pluto, the cat, was his favorite. Overall, having all of these animals’ shows that he was unsociable around humans. With him being unsociable, he relied on his pets for love and someone to talk to, but his so-called friends picked on him for it. His friends were kind of bullies. That caused him to become a sociopath.