The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

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The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe -Commentary- In "The Tell-Tale Heart" the action is filtered through the eyes of a delusional narrator. The narrator fixates upon the old man's eye and determines to commit a conscious act of murder. He prides himself on his careful planning and mastery at deceiving others. While he acts friendly towards the old man and the police, dark secrets are hidden deep inside of him. This leads to a false confidence. He insists on seating the policemen in the very room where he had slain the old man just a few hours before, the old man's body was revealed to be beneath the floorboards at the narrator's own admission and admits his crime because of the loud beating of the heart. The narrator's fate is unclear, although it is probable that he, too, faces execution or certainly some sort of hefty punishment for what he has done. Perhaps he has been committed to an insane asylum, which would explain his constant need to declare that he is not insane; he does not show remorse for his crime, but rather expresses a sense of glee that the old man was murdered, coupled with a new sense of defeat since the heartbeat sound continues to torment him. Its presence affirms the narrator's madness, that his fears are not of supernatural origin, but rather are internalized conditions within his own mind. The narrator's strict refusal to acknowledge this clearly reveals the unsolved problem at the real heart of the tale. It is probable that the heartbeat that the narrator hears all around him in the outside world, is in fact the beating of his very own heart. Thus, he projects internal struggles out into the world that is around him. He kills the old man, screams at the policemen, and begs for the heartbeat... ... middle of paper ... ..., the narrator can still hear the beating of the heart, in "and now!--again!" suggesting that murdering the old man did not solve his problem after all. He had thought that the old man's eye would leave him alone once he was slain, but now the old man's heart consumes him, nor is he able to murder the old man to solve this problem because the old man is already dead! Because it is not possible for a heart to beat when the body it inhabits has been cut apart and drained of much blood, nor is it possible to hear someone else's heartbeat from afar in the first place, it should be clear that the narrator is a madman after all, and his worries, fears, and paranoia that he directs towards the old man and even the police, is in fact all inside of his very head. While trying so determinedly to assert his sanity, the narrator has succeeded in revealing that he truly is insane.

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