The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

The story starts off by an unidentified narrator confronting the reader talking about his nervous condition yet he claims not to be mad. The narrator then begins to relate his story about how he killed an old man, and believes that he did not do it out of insanity. It is the fear of the old man’s blue eye that motivates the narrator to murder him, and not any greed of the old man’s wealth. He keeps on convincing himself that he is not insane, even though his actions are immoral, they are justifiable and just according to him. For a week, the narrator has a habit of going to the old man’s room, and quietly observing as he sleeps, but act normally the following morning when they meet. On the eighth night, he finally decides to kill the old man. The narrator walks into the room, but makes noise with the tin fastening on his lantern that startles the old man, and wakes him up.

The old man shrieks in terror in a loud manner that alarms the neighbor. The narrator does not even twitch a muscle when this happens, showing how he has made up his mind about killing the old man. The narrator can relate to the old man’s fear of the night, as the old man lies awake in his bed dreadfully scared of what is concealed in the darkness. A distinct sound of something pounding is heard by the narrator and he perceives this as the heartbeat of the old man. The old man is suddenly attacked, and smothered to death by the narrator who thought that the heartbeat of the old man would attract their neighbor to the premises.

There is no evidence of the old man left, as the narrator chops up the old man’s body into pieces that he stashes underneath the planks in the room and carefully makes sure there are no blood stains. It is four o’clock as the narrator fi...

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...hings that sum up this story are the old man’s eye, the heartbeat and the narrator’s denial of being insane. It is these three things that carefully layout and structure the events in the way they happen. The plot of this story is brought to life by these three things, and without mention of any of them the story would probably be hard to interpret when trying to understand the character of the narrator. A lot of symbolism and imagery also make the story stand out and wonderful to read.

In conclusion, it is a precise and well written story, as it is not too long in length yet accurately gives its readers sufficient information about the mental state of the narrator and his relationship with his beloved old man.

Works Cited

Poe, Edgar A. "The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe." The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan

Poe. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 May 2014.