Analysis Of A Tell Tale Heart, By William Faulkner

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In the short story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, the story starts out with the townspeople attending the funeral of Emily Grierson, who has been the town’s responsibility for generations. Emily is a black sheep of the town she refuses to pay taxes and doesn’t take part in daily life. After the death of her father and the disappearance of her fiancé, she secludes herself in the old decrypt house her father left her. Throughout the story the townspeople excuse the strange behavior of Miss Emily from the horrible smell coming from her home to holding on to her father’s dead body for three days. Finally after Emily passes the curious townspeople search her home and find the decaying remains of her dead fiancé. In the short story “A …show more content…

Throughout the whole story the narrator is trying to convince the reader that he is not “mad”, but actually very clever. He makes the statement “the disease had sharpened my sense – not destroyed them” (Poe 1127) then goes on to say “madmen know nothing. But you should have seemed me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded” (Poe 1127). The killer wants to be perceived as wise and intelligent when in all actuality he is insane. Due to his mental instability and his contradicting actions he proves himself to be an unreliable narrator. The narrator’s reasons for killing the old man do not make sense at all thrust forth solidifying the idea of mad man. The narrator says “It is impossible to say how the idea entered my brain” (Poe 1127) even he doesn’t know where the idea to murder the man came from in the first place. He also states “I loved the old man. He had never wronged me.” (Poe 1127) there was no motivation of revenge. The narrator eliminates another possible motive by saying “For his gold I had no desire” (Poe 1127) so all the practical reasons for murdering someone did not motivate him to kill. The physical appearance of the man’s pale blue eye is what drove the narrator to kill, which questions the narrator’s mental

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    The fixation on the old man's vulture-like eye forces the narrator to concoct a plan to eliminate the old man. The narrator confesses the sole reason for killing the old man is his eye: "Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees - very gradually - I made up my mind to rid myself of the eye for ever" (34). The narrator begins his tale of betrayal by trying to convince the reader he is not insane, but the reader quickly surmises the narrator indeed is out of control. The fact that the old man's eye is the only motivation to murder proves the narrator is so mentally unstable that he must search for justification to kill. In his mind, he rationalizes murder with his own unreasonable fear of the eye.

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