The Tell Tale Heart Unreliable Narrator

The Tell-Tale Heart The Tell-Tale Heart is a classic short story about obsession. The story is said to be told from the point of view of an unreliable narrator. There are details in the story that shows the narrator as being unreliable.

The story was narrated by a character in the story. In the beginning of the story is the confession from the narrator about killing the old man. Then he gives a reason for killing the old man. The narrator said “he loved the old man, he had never wronged me.” The narrator knew the old man had a gold mine, but he says the reason he killed the old man was because of his eye. The narrator said, “the old man’s eye drove him insane.” But that was just an excuse because he was crazy. There are parts of the story that shows the narrator as being unreliable.

In the first paragraph the narrator said “The disease had sharpened my senses-not destroyed-not dulled them” (41). He also said, “Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell.” In the beginning of the story, he tells the readers that he killed the old man and gave a reason for killing the old man.

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).

The narrator tells us he decides to kill the old man because the old man’s eye scares him. The narrator snuck into his room and looked at the old man while he’s sleeping every night at 12 o’clock for a week before he killed him. The narrator tries to prove that he is not mad to the people who called him mad. The narrator says certain things like “it took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! - would a madman have been so wise as this?