is the narrator of the tell tale heart insane essay

Insane Narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart by Poe

Short stories written by Edgar Allan Poe always provoke several unpredictable and spooky emotions. If the reader wants to find a story with a strange plot and the most irrational characters, it is high time to pay attention to Poe’s works. This author was never ordinary, and his words usually revealed the scariest horrors in human life and human behavior. After reading The Tell-Tale Heart , the first thought that comes to my mind is that the narrator is insane. This story begins with a description of the relationships between the narrator and the old man, whose eye “resembled that of a vulture” (Poe, 1843, p. 3). The desire to take someone’s life because of an eye sounds crazy, and a person has to be mad to think about it wisely and cautiously. It is evident that the character has a personality disorder, and the goal of this paper is to analyze the symptoms and prove the offered diagnosis. In The Tell-Tale Heart , the narrator is insane due to his paranoid personality disorder confirmed by hearing sounds, developing a plan for murder, and being obsessed with a single subject.

Firstly, it is correct to say that the narrator’s mind is disturbed because of the sounds he hears. A healthy person may consider these voices as the individual’s conscience about the recently taken action. A religious man should interpret the same sounds as the message from hell and the necessity to confess the sin. The reaction of the main character to that “low, dull, quick sound – much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton” is a sign of an unstable person (Poe, 1843, p. 8). He does not share his doubts with other people and tries to figure out what is happening to him at the moment, believing that an evil spirit is going to take over his body, and nothing can help him. According to Cherry (2020), the symptoms of paranoid personality disorder include the intention to look for hidden meanings and the necessity to stay secretive, isolated, and cold. Being paranoid means being insane; so, it is appropriate to conclude that the narrator is insane because of the impossibility to get rid of the sound in his head, the sound of his victim’s heart.

Secondly, the insanity of the narrator may be explained through the prism of his actions and the justification of a murder plan. It is expected of people to plan their day, a working schedule, shopping activities, or parties. However, to plan a murder is never normal but inherent to psycho killers or paranoid individuals. The character’s attention to the details and the desire to share his maturity and caution frighten him. He seems to be proud of his week-long preparation when “every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it – oh, so gently” (Poe, 1843, p. 3). The narrator thinks about the killing process with precise details. According to Amir (2018), the anaphoric use of words in the story helps to intensify the description that is inherent to an insane person. It is necessary to take enough time and make sure that no single drop of blood to be on the floor, as well as no single person, hears his manipulations with a floorboard. It was not a cold murder but a well-thoughtful plan on how to reach the target, take action and hide the body.

Thirdly, it is necessary to admit that the narrator is very obsessed with one particular object, the vulture’s eye, as he claims the old man has. When he feels the look from “a pale blue eye, with a film over it,” his “blood ran cold” (Poe, 1843, p. 3). This feeling is enough for the man to kill a person who offers the place to live. Obsession is a dangerous and unpredictable condition, and it turns out to be one of the signs of insane behavior. According to Merriam-Webster (n.d.), an obsessed person is preoccupied with irrational thoughts. In Poe’s work, there are many good examples of the main character’s obsession. For example, in the beginning, his obsession is directed to the eye of the victim. During the development of the story, obsession is observed in his repetitive actions and the intention to disprove his madness. Finally, his mental breakdown is provoked by a paranoid obsession with sounds. He uses nervousness as the disease that “had sharpened my senses – not destroyed” (Poe, 1843, p. 3). However, any mental health change needs to be treated, and its progress must be assessed.

To conclude the story of a one-night murder, enough evidence has been gathered to prove that the narrator is insane. Such signs as hallucinations, the disturbed mind, and obsessive thinking cannot be ignored to confirm the diagnosis of paranoid personality disorder. This condition is characterized by the inability to understand that something wrong happens. The narrator’s behavior is out of the ordinary, and the reader sees the proof in his actions, thoughts, and the necessity to explain every decision and step. His paranoid obsession with the old man’s eye is evident and makes him insane. The inability to cope with the multiple symptoms of a mental health disorder has a tremendous impact on the narrator. His confession is a matter of time but not because of his feeling of guilt but because of confusion and his weakness. The story shows that it may be easy to take someone’s life and develop a perfect murder plan. However, it is always hard to live with the consequences and negative emotions that absorb the best qualities of a morally stable person after committing a crime that cannot be justified.

Amir, S. (2018). Stylistic analysis of the short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe. Angloamericanae Journal, 3 (1), 18-28. Web.

Cherry, K. (2020). Paranoid personality disorder . Verywell Mind. Web.

Merriam-Webster. (n.d). Obsess. In Merriam-Webster dictionary . Web.

Poe, E. A. (1843). The tell-tale heart [eBook edition]. Online Books Page. Web.

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Poe's Stories

Edgar allan poe, everything you need for every book you read..

• Poe's Short Stories

Edgar Allan Poe

• Literature Notes
• "The Tell-Tale Heart"
• Edgar Allan Poe Biography
• About Poe's Short Stories
• Summary and Analysis
• "The Fall of the House of Usher"
• "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"
• "The Purloined Letter"
• "The Black Cat"
• "The Cask of Amontillado"
• "William Wilson"
• "The Pit and the Pendulum"
• "The Masque of the Red Death"
• Critical Essays
• Edgar Allan Poe and Romanticism
• Poe's Critical Theories
• Cite this Literature Note

Summary and Analysis "The Tell-Tale Heart"

Even though this is one of Poe's shortest stories, it is nevertheless a profound and, at times, ambiguous investigation of a man's paranoia. The story gains its intensity by the manner in which it portrays how the narrator stalks his victim — as though he were a beast of prey; yet, at the same time, elevated by human intelligence to a higher level of human endeavor, Poe's "murderer" is created into a type of grotesque anomaly. In a sense, the narrator is worse than a beast; only a human being could so completely terrorize his victim before finally killing it, as, for example, the narrator deliberately terrorizes the old man before killing him. And as noted in the introduction to this section, this story shows the narrator's attempt to rationalize his irrational behavior.

The story begins with the narrator admitting that he is a "very dreadfully nervous" type. This type is found throughout all of Poe's fiction, particularly in the over-wrought, hyper-sensitive Roderick Usher in "The Fall of the House of Usher." As with Usher, the narrator here believes that his nervousness has "sharpened my senses — not destroyed — not dulled them." Thus, he begins by stating that he is not mad, yet he will continue his story and will reveal not only that he is mad, but that he is terribly mad. His sensitivities allow him to hear and sense things in heaven, hell, and on earth that other people are not even aware of. His over-sensitivity becomes in this story the ultimate cause of his obsession with the old man's eye, which in turn causes him to murder the old man. Ironically, the narrator offers as proof of his sanity the calmness with which he can narrate the story.

The story begins boldly and unexpectedly: "I loved the old man," the narrator says, adding, "He had never wronged me." Next, he reveals that he was obsessed with the old man's eye — "the eye of a vulture — a pale blue eye, with a film over it." Without any real motivation, then, other than his psychotic obsession, he decides to take the old man's life.

Even though he knows that we, the readers, might consider him mad for this decision, yet he plans to prove his sanity by showing how "wisely" and with what extreme precaution, foresight, and dissimulation he executed his deeds. Every night at twelve o'clock, he would slowly open the door, "oh so gently," and would quietly and cunningly poke his head very slowly through the door. It would sometimes take him an hour to go that far — "would a madman have been so wise as this?" he asks, thus showing, he hopes, how thoroughly objective he can be while commenting on the horrible deed he committed.

For seven nights, he opened the door ever so cautiously, then when he was just inside, he opened his lantern just enough so that one small ray of light would cast its tiny ray upon "the vulture eye." The following morning, he would go into the old man's chamber and speak to him with cordiality and friendship.

On the eighth night, he decided it was now the time to commit the deed. When he says "I fairly chuckled at the idea," we know that we are indeed dealing with a highly disturbed personality — despite the fact that he seems to present his story very coherently.

On this particular night, unlike the preceding seven nights, the narrator's hand slipped on the clasp of the lantern, and the old man immediately "sprang up in bed, crying out — 'Who's there?'" He can see nothing because the shutters are all closed. Here, as in most of Poe's stories, the action proper of the story takes place within a closed surrounding — that is, the murder of the old man is within the confines of his small bedroom with the shutters closed and in complete darkness.

Furthermore, as in works like "The Cask of Amontillado," the moans of the victim heighten the terror of the story. The old man's moans were "low stifled sounds that arose from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe." The narrator knew that the old man felt that he was in the room and, dramatically, when he opened his lantern to let a small ray of light out, it "fell full upon the vulture eye." When he saw that "hideous veiled eye," he became furious. But he warns the reader not to mistake his "over-acuteness of the senses" for madness because he says that suddenly there came to his ears "a low, dull, quick sound": It was the beating of the old man's heart. It is at this point in the story that we have our first ambiguity based upon the narrator's over-sensitivity and madness. The question is, obviously, whose heart does he hear? We all know that in moments of stress and fright our own heartbeat increases so rapidly that we feel every beat. Consequently, from the psychological point of view, the narrator thinks that he is hearing his own increased heartbeat.

As he waits, the heartbeat which he heard excited him to uncontrollable terror, for the heart seemed to be "beating . . . louder [and] louder." The narrator was suddenly aware that the old man's heartbeat was so loud that the neighbors might hear it. Thus, the time had come. He dragged the old man to the floor, pulled the mattress over him and slowly the muffled sound of the heart ceased to beat. The old man was dead — "his eye would trouble me no more."

Again the narrator attempts to show us that because of the wise precautions he took, no one could consider him to be mad, that he is, in fact, not mad. First, he dismembered the old man, and afterward there was not a spot of blood anywhere: "A tub had caught all — ha! ha!" The mere narration here shows how the narrator, with his wild laughter, has indeed lost his rational faculties. Likewise, the delight he takes in dismembering the old man is an act of extreme abnormality.

After the dismembering and the cleaning up were finished, the narrator carefully removed the planks from the floor in the old man's room and placed all the parts of the body under the floor. As he surveyed his work, the door bell rang at 4 A.M. The police were there to investigate some shrieks. (To the reader, this is an unexpected turn of events, but in such tales, the unexpected becomes the normal; see the section on "Edgar Allan Poe and Romanticism.")

The narrator admitted the police to the house "with a light heart" since the old man's heart was no longer beating, and he let the police thoroughly search the entire house. Afterward, he bade the police to sit down, and he brought a chair and sat upon "the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim." The officers were so convinced that there was nothing to be discovered in the apartment that could account for the shrieks that they sat around chatting idly. Then suddenly a noise began within the narrator's ears. He grew agitated and spoke with a heightened voice. The sound increased; it was " a low, dull quick sound. " We should note that the words used here to describe the beating of the heart are the exact words used only moments earlier to describe the murder of the old man.

As the beating increased, the narrator "foamed [and] raved" adjectives commonly used to apply to a mad man. In contrast to the turmoil going on in the narrator's mind, the police continued to chat pleasantly. The narrator wonders how it was possible that they did not hear the loud beating which was becoming louder and louder. He can stand the horror no longer because he knows that "they were making a mockery of my horror . . . [and] anything was better than this agony!" Thus, as the beating of the heart becomes intolerable, he screams out to the police: "I admit the deed! — tear up the planks! here, here! — it is the beating of his hideous heart!"

Early commentators on the story saw this as merely another tale of terror or horror in which something supernatural was happening. To the modern reader, it is less ambiguous; the beating of the heart occurs within the narrator himself. It is established at the beginning of the story that he is over-sensitive — that he can hear and feel things that others cannot. At the end of the story, if there really were a beating heart up under the floor boards, then the police would have heard it. Clearly, the narrator, who has just finished the gruesome act of dismembering a corpse, cannot cope with the highly emotional challenge needed when the police are searching the house. These two factors cause his heart rate to accelerate to the point that his heartbeat is pounding in his ears so loudly that he cannot stand the psychological pressure any longer. Thus he confesses to his horrible deed. The narrator's "tell-tale" heart causes him to convict himself.

We have here, then, a narrator who believes that he is not mad because he can logically describe events which seem to prove him to be mad. The conciseness of the story and its intensity and economy all contribute to the total impact and the overall unity of effect. In the narrator's belief that he is not mad, but that he actually heard the heart of the old man still beating, Poe has given us one of the most powerful examples of the capacity of the human mind to deceive itself and then to speculate on the nature of its own destruction.

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• The Tell Tale Heart

Background of the Story

“The Tell-Tale Heart” is a story by Edgar Allan Poe written in 1843. It is about a murderer who tries to persuade his readers of his mental stability while telling the tale of the brutish act. He denies that he suffers from some mental illness and openly boasts of his cleverness and cunning behavior. He kills an old man though he loves him. He holds no grudges against him and murders him without any motive.

The old man’s “vulture-eye” makes the narrator angry and he decides to kill him. He attends to every minute detail in the process of murder; carefully kills him, disjoints every part of his body, and then buries the body parts underground in the room. He also receives the policemen with utmost comfort but, slowly and gradually, his anxiety increases. His guilty conscience constantly pricks him and reminds him of his brutal act. Eventually, he cannot bear the secret anymore and confesses his crime to the policemen.

The untrustworthy narrator does not have a solid reason to murder the old man (apart from his hatred for the old man’s eye). Furthermore, Poe has not given us detail about the narrator’s relationship with the old man. We do not know, as readers, whether the narrator is a male or a female. Poe only focuses on the events and situations which lead to the killing rather than focusing on individuals.

The story is one of the classics of Poe’s short stories and of its genre. The setting and diction used in the story make it a classic Poe story. The story is a proof of human being’s inherently evil nature. The unreliable narrator in the story brutally murders the old man irrationally and without any reason. The story also explores the paranoiac state of mind of the narrator.

The Tell Tale Heart Summary

At the start of the story, the narrator is answering an imaginary listener. He confesses that he has been ill but denies the fact that he is insane. Furthermore, he announces that the illness has given him more strength especially to his “sense of hearing”. He tells the imaginary listener that he is more vigilant now and is able to hear everything. Then he tells the listener to listen carefully as he narrates the story.

He confesses that there was no motive for what he did. He loved the old man who never harmed him. The motive behind the murder was not his wealth and gold, however, one of his eyes made him kill the old man. He hated his vulture-like eye and it persuaded him to murder the old man. The narrator says that the old man’s eye angered him so he made up his mind to kill him to shut that eye once and for all.

Again he tries to prove his sanity by admitting that he planned carefully to murder the old man making us aware that an insane person cannot plan. He informs his readers that for seven continuous nights he would go into the old man’s room, quietly, and would wait for the exact moment to commit the crime. He would examine the old man’s eye with the help of his lantern and would find it close. He would return annoyingly as it is his “Evil Eye” which motivates him to murder him. Ironically, in the morning he would ask the old man how he spent the night.

He continues with the story and tells us that on the night of the murder he went to the old man’s room with more caution. He wonders at his cunning plan and laughs at the old man’s lack of awareness. Out of nowhere, the old man sensed something and moved. The narrator tells us that he did not feel afraid as he knew the old man could not see him in the darkness. He, quietly, entered the room. The old man suspected something and asked who was in the room.

The narrator informs us that he did not move an inch for an hour knowing that the old man is alert. Then he hears a frightening cry from the old man sitting alert in his bed. He tells us that the old man knows not of his presence but he can assume his death impending upon him. Afterwards, he gradually puts light on the old man and realizes that his hateful eye is open. It makes him angry. He does not notice his face because he is not interested in it rather it is his eye that troubles him. The sight of his eye fills him with rage.

Furthermore, as he boasts of his increased hearing sense, he hears the beating of the victim’s heart. He tries to stay calm but the beating of the old man’s heart increases his anger. The narrator becomes anxious and is unable to bear his heartbeat anymore. The narrator takes the help of the bedsheets and holds it firmly “over his head”. The old man, slowly and gradually, suffocates and his heartbeat stops. The narrator takes a sigh of relief knowing that his eye will never trouble him again.

He again challenges those who question his sanity and tells them that they should consider how he hid the dead body so as no one can find it. He disjoints every part of the dead body carefully. Then he removes the planks and hides the pieces there cautiously making sure nothing is left behind. Afterwards, he puts the planks down again, with great care, so that no one can get a clue of their removal.

When he finishes, the clock strikes four in the morning. Someone knocks at the door. He calmly opens the door and realizes that three policemen have arrived. They have been called upon by one of the neighbors who heard the shriek of the old man. They are here to investigate any mishap. He receives them calmly and tells them that he shrieked because of a nightmare. He escorts them all over the house and tells them to do their search. He even leads them to the old man’s room and offers them chairs to sit there and rest.

He confesses that his calm demeanor made the cops believe his explanation and they sat calmly there. They chat continuously and after a while, the narrator wishes they should depart. Slowly and gradually, he becomes anxious and his calmness fades away. In the meantime, he hears some sound. At first, he perceives it to be inside his head but then he realizes that the sound is not internal rather it is in the room. He talks louder and causes commotion in the room to cover it up but it gets louder with the passage of time.

He walks to and fro in the room to make some noise but its intensity increases. However, the policemen seem not to hear it and they are busy chatting and smiling as usual. The narrator thinks the policemen know and they are laughing at his stupidity. He says he constantly suffered because of their smiles and hearing that sound. Eventually, he cannot stand it anymore and confesses his crime. He tells the policemen to uncover the planks and they will find the mutilated body of the old man and his pumping heart.

Mental Health

Poe’s story shows its readers the importance of mental health. The story demonstrates that mental illness can drive a person to the vilest acts. Psychological problems can lead individuals to act dangerously without any motive. The narrator, in the story, suffers from some mental problems which lead to his destruction.

He, time and again, denies the fact that he suffers from mental illness but his awkward actions prove that he suffers from some psychological problem. He is obsessed with killing the old man for no apparent reason and scrutinizes him for seven successive nights. The narrator, being paranoiac, kills the old man out of fear but that is not an acceptable reason.

Furthermore, he also enjoys the moment when he suffocates the old man, holding the bed sheets tightly over his face. This event makes him a sadist; who enjoys inflicting pain on others. This event also shows that he has some psychological problems. Through these events, Poe demonstrates the idea that an individual’s psychological health is as important as his physical health.

Guilt is another significant theme in the story. Although the narrator does not feel guilty of his crime openly, however, it is his guilty conscience which leads him to confess his crime. At first, he murders the old man in his room and calmly hides his dead body underground. Then he calmly receives the policemen and leads them across the house. However, in the hearts of his heart, he feels nervous with the passage of time.

Slowly and gradually, he hears sounds which he did not hear previously. He becomes anxious and tries to evade the sounds by making a commotion. However, his guilt does not leave him until he confesses his crime. He is of the opinion that the heartbeat is that of the old man’s heart but actually it is his own heart pumping with guilt. Externally, he enjoys killing the old man but his guilty conscience does not let him enjoy the brutal act.

Confinement

The theme of confinement is central to the story. The actions in the story are confined to a house only. Neither the narrator nor the old man go outside the house throughout the story. The narrator wants to break this confinement by murdering the old man but is unsuccessful. He murders the old man but never breaks his confinement.

The narrator thinks he will escape the life of confinement by killing the old man who is a threat to his freedom, according to him, but never succeeds. Instead, after killing he becomes more confined to the old man’s room. First, he would roam around the house but after killing him, he sits with the policemen in the old man’s room. He does not leave the room until he confesses his crime.

This confinement can imply that the narrator’s own psych has imprisoned him and he is unable to escape it. He thought he would gain freedom by killing the old man unaware of the fact that it is his mental confinement rather than his physical which never lets him free.

Characters Analysis

Characters are people who have some individual traits in a piece of writing. Without characters, a piece of literature looks dull. They are mouthpieces for a writer through which a writer expresses their opinions about a particular issue. Characters provide them with an outlet to contribute to the social structure. Some characters are major characters on which the writer focuses more while others are minor characters who have a supporting role in a piece of writing. 

Poe’s story revolves around the unreliable narrator who murders an old man for no apparent reason. Other characters in the story are not significant. The detailed analysis of his character is given below;

The Narrator

Poe does not give us information about the narrator’s gender. We, as readers, do not know whether he is a male or a female. We assume that he is a male and that is why we use the pronoun “He” for the narrator. After reading the story we conclude that he has many problems in his character; he suffers from paranoia, he is nervous and has some physical as well as mental illness. He tries to prove his sanity for the most part of the story.

After reading the story, we assume that the narrator acts according to his natural impulses. The narrator murders the old man because he thinks the old man is a threat to his individual freedom. Being paranoiac, the narrator assumes the old man is always trying to harm him, although he confesses that he has never harmed him, he acts in advance and takes his life. He murders the old man due to his own fear.

Furthermore, the narrator suffers from some kind of physical instability. His ears are hypersensitive and he hears sounds which others do not hear. We, as readers, do not know about his past and cannot claim that he suffers from some ailment but his awkward behavior and his physical instability make us think he is not physically fit.

As Poe lived most of his life in the southern United States we can, contextually, assume that the narrator is a “Southern Gothic Hero”. The narrator may have a master-slave relationship with the old man. It may be the case that the old man as a ‘master’ mistreats the narrator as a ‘slave’. This may have urged the narrator to murder the old man to get rid of his authoritative behavior.

Lastly, the narrator may be a sadist; ‘a person who derives pleasure, especially sexual gratification, from inflicting pain or humiliation on others’, and to fulfill his sadistic impulses he may have murdered the old man without any apparent reason.

The narrator’s character in the story is an enigmatic one and arises many questions in the readers’ minds. The above analysis is not blunt realities about his characters but mere assumptions.

Literary Analysis

Edgar Allan Poe’s short story poses many questions to be answered by the readers. The reality of the narrator, the motive behind his murder, his relationship with the old man, and the issues of his mental and physical health are to be discussed in this analysis section.

The narrator is an unreliable person having no specific name. Even we do not know about his gender. Most of the critics believe that the narrator is a male, as was the norm at that time, however, others believe that it may be a female character who narrates the story. The narrator acts illogically throughout the story and follows his instincts rather than his reason. On the basis of these qualities, some critics believe that the narrator might be a female because irrationality and emotionality were associated with women at that time. Poe focuses more on the events in the story rather than the individuals, so he leaves it open for his readers to decide whether the narrator is a male or a female.

There seems to be no motive behind the narrator murdering the old man except for the old man’s ‘Evil Eye’ which the narrator dislikes. However, this excuse is not strong enough to take someone’s life. Critics believe that the narrator suffers from paranoia and his paranoiac personality leads him to commit the murder. A paranoiac person feels fear of others all the time. Same is the case with the narrator in the story. He feels afraid of the old man though he has never harmed him. In order to counter his fear, he kills the old man without any apparent reason.

On the other hand, the narrator may want individual freedom and that is why he kills the old man. He confesses himself that he was not targeting the old man’s gold or money. He may be struggling to gain freedom which may seem impossible if the old man lives so he decides to kill him. Ironically, he becomes more confined after murdering the old man. Consequently, we can say that there is no apparent reason for murdering the old man. These are mere speculations.

There are diverse opinions about the relationship between the narrator and the old man. They both live in the same house. The narrator loves the old man until he murders him. The old man never harms the narrator. Some critics opine that there is a master-slave relationship between the two. The old man serves as the master and the narrator is a slave to him. As the old man’s ‘Evil Eye’ is the object of hatred for the narrator, this relationship makes sense. The ‘Evil Eye’ represents the dominance of the old man which the narrator never accepts, so he tries to kill him to gain freedom.

Other critics believe that there is a father-son relationship between the two. However, according to my understanding of the story, this assumption is a little weak. Why, on earth, will a son kill his own father so brutally if he loves him and his father never harms him. It may happen, in some cases, but is not true for this story. A son will never go to such extremes to gain freedom from his father, according to my opinion. Finally, Poe leaves this relationship open for the readers to decide.

Furthermore, the narrator throughout the story tries to prove his sanity but his actions and his words are enough for the readers to conclude that he suffers from physical as well as mental problems. He leaves no stone unturned to prove that he is not a mad person but his actions prove otherwise. He gives logical reasons for his irrational act but fails. His motiveless murder, his sadistic attitude during the murder, and his calm demeanor after the murder prove that he suffers from some psychological problem.

He plans the murder methodically and never gives the old man a clue about his plan. However, he kills the old man without any evident reason which shows his psychological instability. His paranoiac mentality urges him to kill the old man before he could harm him. The motiveless murder also throws light on his sadistic personality. He enjoys inflicting pain upon others. He also enjoys mutilating the old man’s dead body. He does not shudder or feel any fear of doing this hideous act.

The narrator’s brutal act also refers to the inherently evil nature of human beings. He murders the old man without any rationale. This refers to the idea of the ‘Original sin’ which means that every human being has the tendency to sin or do evil acts, without any reason, because they are born sinners. William Golding in his novel Lord of the Flies also explores this idea of human being’s evil nature from birth. We can associate these ideas with the narrator as he kills the old man without any motive.

Poe’s story is a classic horror story. All elements of Gothic fiction are present in the story. The hidden corpse, the supernatural setting of the story, the horrible murder, and the mentally unstable protagonist, all these elements make it a classic example of Gothic fiction. The narrator, who is the protagonist of the story, suffers from some psychological problem and commits a murder without any obvious reason. He hears sounds which no one else hears, leading to the fact that he suffers from some mental problem.

Mystery and fear is another element of Gothic fiction which is also present in the story. The narrator, himself, is an enigmatic personality who no one knows fully. He has no name and no specific gender. He is paranoiac and his fear of being harmed leads him to murder the innocent old man. The setting of the story also conforms to the idea of Gothic fiction. The story is set in a bizarre and strange house with no detailed description. The narrator commits the murder in a dark room. The underground hiding of the corpse adds to the canny setting of the story.

The supernatural elements also add to the Gothic form in the story. The pounding heart of the dead old man comes to haunt the narrator. Whether it is the heartbeat of the old man’s heart or the narrator’s own heart is debatable, however, it increases the narrator’s anxiety. It haunts him until he confesses his crime to the policemen.

As Poe lived in times when Romanticism was at its peak so the influence of Romanticism is pretty much there in his fiction. He wrote about the strange and bizarre things and neglected literature for a didactic approach. He focused on emotions rather than rationale and wrote literature which had a direct effect on feelings and emotions. The narrator in the story acts according to his intuitions and does not care about the consequences. The Romantic influence on his writings is greater in this regard.

Settings in Romantic literature are some strange places and “The Tell-Tale Heart” is no exception. The story is, mainly, set in a horrible and bizarre room full of darkness. Poe believed that the greatest art should be set in a place which is different from the ordinary world and most of his stories are set in places which are out of this world, literally.

The influence of Romanticism is evident in Poe’s characterization. Most of his main characters have no names and no genders. The narrator in the story is also deprived of any name or gender. He focused on the overall effect of his art rather than on individuals’ importance. Lastly, the subject matter is also peculiar and unusual. According to Romantic writers, mundane subjects have no place in literature. Poe, himself hated ordinary and common subjects and dealt with the unusual. So he wrote about those subjects which amazed the common readers. He wrote literature that was horrific and not ordinary. The influence of Romanticism is evident in his writings.

The title of the story is significant. It points to the hearts of both the old man and the narrator. The old man’s heart beats rapidly when he perceives someone in his room. His heart awakens him to the danger in the room. However, the narrator gets furious and murders the old man. The next time, the pounding of the heart comes from the underground. This assumption is false because underground lies the mutilated body of the old man. This actually is the pounding of the narrator’s own heart. The narrator is nervous and his pumping heart reminds him of his guilty act. The heart “tells tales”, one of fear and the other of guilt.

The story is set in a house we, as readers know little of. Poe does not describe the house fully to his readers. The murder takes place in the bedroom of the old man which is dark and horrific.

Writing style

The structure and style of the story are very compact. It can be read in one sitting. The language is simple and there are seemingly no archaic words. There is a mixture of long and short sentences. The choice of words completely fits the subject matter in the story. Poe uses very authentic words to convey his idea in the best possible manner. It makes a powerful impact on the reader. 

All the events and situations comfortably lead to the climax in the story and then pass that intent into the befitting ending. The sentences are well connected and they fittingly play their role in taking the story to the desired ending. There is not a single loose thread. The sentences contribute to the overall effect of the story. The writer very tactfully makes this story powerful by the authentic use of language.

Point of View

The story is told by an untrustworthy narrator in the first person. For the most part of the story, he tries to prove that he does not suffer from some mental problems. Throughout the story, he tries to justify his irrational actions logically.

The tone of the story is gloomy and anxious. Though the narrator is a murderer yet the readers feel sympathy for him as he suffers from severe psychological problems. After the murder, he suffers from nervousness and feels guilty of his crime. The melancholic tone of the story is intermixed with the nervous feelings of the narrator.

The old man’s eye is the sole object of hatred for the narrator. He wants to shut it forever. If we assume that the relationship between the two is that of a master and slave then the eye represents the authoritative gaze of the master. The narrator shuts it to free himself from the dominance of the master. However, if the narrator is a female then the eye represents the authoritative gaze of a dominant male. The narrator then wanted to free herself of male dominance and murdered the old man.

On the other hand, the narrator refers to the eye of the old man as ‘vulture-like’. Vultures like to eat sick or dead animals. As a paranoiac, the narrator fears the old man will harm him so he acts to counter his fear and murders him to protect himself from being devoured.

The Bed and Bedroom

The bed and bedroom are the places of comfort and warmth generally. However, Edgar Allan Poe negates all the comfort associated with the bed and bedroom. The narrator openly spies on the old man when he sleeps in his room. He breaches all the norms of one’s bedroom and does not consider the privacy of the old man. Ironically, the bedroom becomes a place of agony for the old man. The narrator uses bed sheets as murder weapons to suffocate the old man and hides his body underground.

The house represents the subconscious of the narrator. When he hides the mutilated body of the old man underground, he symbolically hides his crime in his subconscious. Nonetheless, we can retrieve the information hidden in our subconscious mind. Same is the case with the narrator. His pounding heart reminds him of his own guilt and never stops until he confesses his crime to the policemen.

Poe uses irony to great effect in the story. Firstly, the narrator murders the old man because he hates his “vulture eye” and he deems it a flaw in his character. However, the narrator negates the fact that he also suffers from paranoia which is a severe flaw than the “vulture eye” of the old man. A person with severe illness murders a person with less severe physical flaws is ironic.

Secondly, the narrator boasts of his sanity and leaves no stone unturned to provide details that will prove his sanity to the readers. On the other hand, he gives a detailed analysis of how he murdered the old man without any reason. It is ironic because a healthy and sound person will never kill another person.He also confesses that he loves the old man who has never harmed him yet he brutally kills him. This is ironic because how can a person brutally kill a person he loves and who has never harmed him.

A person’s bedroom is a place of privacy and comfort for an individual. Poe makes the bedroom of the old man his death place, which is ironic. The narrator breaches all norms of the old man’s privacy and kills him in his own bedroom. Ironically, he uses his bed as a murdering weapon. He suffocates the old man using his bedsheets and hides his disjointed body underground in his bedroom. The old man’s bedroom, a place of warmth and comfort, becomes his graveyard.

In a nutshell, Edgar Allan Poe very tactfully conveys his message in this short story. He gives his readers an insight into the paranoiac mind of a person. Through this story, he enables his readers to not be deceived by outward expressions of an individual as he may be harmful to them inwardly. He also throws light on the significance of the mental health of an individual. He opines that psychological health is more important than physical health because it can lead individuals to their own destruction.

More From Edgar Allan Poe

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Edgar Allan Poe — Characterization In The Tell Tale Heart

Characterization in The Tell Tale Heart

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Published: Mar 13, 2024

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Table of contents

The narrator, secondary characters, final thoughts.

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