The Tell-Tale Heart Symbolism

“Everyone/Thinks that we’re perfect/Please don’t let them see through the curtains.” These may just be song lyrics from Melanie Martinez’s song “Dollhouse”, but they speak of a conglomeration of ideas. They represent the fact that many people have internal conflicts, and that not all people with minds that are socially or medically considered “functioning” can act in a normal way. The narrator in “The Tell Tale Heart”, a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, is a suitable example of one of those people. In the story, the narrator has a disease that brings him to fear the old man (his neighbor) to the point that he feels the only solution is to murder him. He attempts to convince both himself and the reader that he is not mad, as he classifies madness

On page one, the text says “One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture -- a pale blue eye with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold, and so by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever.” The narrator’s apparent unease about the old man’s eye supports the idea that this eye represents fear, as the phrase “my blood ran cold” is an idiom used to describe somebody when they are frightened. So, by Edgar Allan Poe using this literary device, the reader can definitely see how the “Evil Eye” represents fright. Also on page 1, the text states “... I found the eye always closed, and so it was impossible to do the work, for it was not the old man who vexed me but his Evil Eye.” Primarily, by calling this eye the “Evil Eye”, it shows the narrator already considered the eye to be bad without really completely knowing it. When people think of evil, they usually associate it with fear. So, by him calling the eye what he does, it shows that he dreads it. Lastly, on page two, the text says “It was open, wide, wide open, and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness -- all a dull blue with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones, but I could see nothing else of the old man’s face or person, for I had directed the ray as if by instinct precisely upon the damned spot.” Words such as

On page one, the text states “Nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why WILL you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, and not dulled them.” Here, the narrator seems to be very defensive about his condition. This shows that he has been questioned and confronted about his disease before in the past, and feels the need to explain what his disease actually is to everyone. Other peoples’ interpretations are obviously different than his, as he classifies mad a whole different way than many others might. This is shown again when he says on page one that “I heard all things in heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell” (2) and “And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense?” (2). So, once again, he is showing that being mad has to do with dull senses, not anything else that others, and that other people interpreted it wrong. Other quotes really hit home that the disease represents misinterpretation such as “If you still think me mad, you will so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body” (3) and “Would I madman have been so wise as this?” (1). All of this challenging towards the reader reinforces what was previously stated in this paragraph, and definitely shows that there are difference in opinions between the narrator and others. A song quote that really