The Tell-Tale Heart Literary Analysis

The Tell-Tale Heart , much like many of Edgar Allan Poe’s other works, is a dark and somber work of literature. The poem begins with the narrator trying to explain that he has not lost control of his mind. He explains that he has been ill, but that his illness has only made his senses and his mind stronger. The narrator then begins to tell his story to try to explain that he is not crazy. His story begins by him saying that he felt as if the old man’s eye was watching him. He comes to the conclusion that he must kill the old man in order to keep the eye from watching him. So, for seven nights he goes into the old man’s bedroom at midnight to see if the man’s eyes are open. He claims that he cannot kill the old man unless the eye is open because he did not feel threatened by

As he was killing the old man, the narrator claims that he could hear the man’s heart beating very loudly. After the narrator kills the old man, he chops him up into pieces and hides the pieces beneath the floorboards. The police arrive the next day after a neighbor reported hearing screams. When the police arrive, the narrator invites them in and invites them to search his home. He remains calm and he even invites the men into the old man’s bedroom. He lied to the police and told them that the old man had left to visit a friend. After the police had stayed for a long time, the narrator began to get nervous. He began to hear what sounded like a heartbeat. He concludes that the heartbeat he is hearing is coming from the old man, even though the old man is dead. It is beating so loudly that he is afraid that the police are hearing it; however, the police acted as if they heard nothing. He panics and soon confesses to the police that he murdered the old man. It is simple to conclude that even though the narrator claims to not be mad, he was driven mad by the fear and feeling of being watched by the old man’s