Introduction and summary
This short story is based on an unidentified narrator who defends his sanity while confessing to a killing of an old man. The motivation for the killing is only the fear he has for the old man’s pale blue eyes. In a detailed narration of his cautions and forethought killing of the old man, the narrator constantly argues he is not mad on account of this measured and cool criminal action, which arguably, are not attributes of the mad. This paper is a literary analysis of the tell-tale heart narration by Poe. The primary theme in the story is guilt and madness, which is clear all through the narration. While the narrator constantly defends his crime and madness, he eventually confesses to the crime.
The unnamed narrator begins the story with a direct address to the reader and acknowledges that he is nervous and argues that he is not mad. He then says that the story he is going to tell is an evidence of his sanity, but the juxtaposition is that, while he is doing so, he confesses to his crime of murder. His motivation to kill the old man was not passion or money, as it is the case commonly, but for the fear of the old man’s “evil eye” (Poe). In his argument, he insists that his caution, forethought, measured actions, and cool during the killing is the qualification for his sanity. This argument is backed, at least to the narrators point of view, by the fact that, such ‘planning’ would not be done by a mad person.
After several nights of sneaking into the old man’s apartment and observing him in his sleep, he at a given time randomly decides that it was time to kill the old man. On the eighth night, the old man wakes up as the narrator is sneaking into the room. The narrator then stalks the old man as he is unable to go back to sleep due to being frightened (Leenaars, 221). The narrator is able to understand the old man’s...
Works cited
Brittain, Robert P. "The sadistic murderer." Medicine, Science and the Law 10.4 (1970): 198-207. Web.
Leenaars, Antoon A. "Suicide: A multidimensional malaise." Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior 26.3 (1996): 221-236. Web.
Poe, Edgar Allan. The tell-tale heart. American Studies at the University of Virginia, 2002. Web.
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