The Tell-Tale Heart Insane

626 Words2 Pages

In the story 'The Tell-Tale Heart' Allan Poe has created a character which is interpreted as insane; a character who says that he is not crazy even though he is constantly convicting himself. A main character who frequently states "why will you say that I am mad?", however the more he talks the more the reader believes he is. Furthermore, the author built up a creepy main character. In the story the narrator plots to murder the old man. This portrays him as a dangerous person. A dangerous and unstable character is very effective because it makes him unreliable, meaning he is unpredictable. Despite the fact that he seems to thoroughly plan his murder, he is depicted by the reader as an erratic character who could carry out a dangerous attack at any time. This is supported by the fact that in the story the main character sees the old man's "vulture eye" as a separate being from the old man …show more content…

It is clear to me that the eye is a symbol of evil. In the story the old man states that he doesn't want to kill the old man, as he stated "I love the old man.", however his problem was the 'eye'. The narrator isn't completely sure what is wrong with the eye, however it is represented as almost an entity separate from him. I believe the author chose to create a relationship between the old man's 'eye' and the narrator in order to reveal more about the narrator's character. For example, how the old man describes the eye: "For his gold I had no desire", "My blood ran cold", "for it was not the old man who vexed me, it was he evil eye". These quotes describe how the narrator despised the eye. The 'eye' gave the narrator a strong urge; It was like an object he had to destroy. This adds onto the effectiveness of the character by letting the reader know exactly how 'mad' he is. The reader recognizes the fact that the narrator begins to become obsessed with the fact that he has to get rid of the diseased eye in order to purge his own

Open Document