Summary of The Tell-tale Heart

Edgar Allan Poe creates his horror within the cusp of American literature by representing a unique approach to the human mind and original portraits of unreliable narrator. Murderer or madman? Madness or an elaborate plan? These two questions are addressed in the short story The Tell-Tale Heart written by Edgar Alan Poe. It is really difficult to understand the real motive behind the actions of the narrator. On some level he has a reason to kill the old man, but this reason is too weak for that strong kind of punishment as a murder. To murder a person due to the “the vulture eye” leads to the conclusion that murderer has some problems with the health, especially with the mind. Poe depicts the confession of homodiegetic narrator who attempts to avoid responsibility on his mental sanity referring to external odd forces that impulse him to make murder. Homodiegetic narrator represents himself as madman with a motiveless malignity and I analyse that his behavior and actions lead to madness and mental disorder rather than an intelligent design.

As William Hammond writes in the article Madness and Murder, every human being has the propensity to kill, without exception. In some people this feeling is developed to a greater or less extent. In any case it is represented in killing some insect, animal, or what is absolutely bad – in killing another human (Hammond, 626). Considering the identity of the narrator within the short story The Tell-Tale Heart almost from the very beginning he has a wish to kill the old man, and the reason is the eye. From the point of view of the narrator, it is not an eye that we are thinking about and can imagine, rather, it is the “Evil Eye”, something that he looks with a special perspective. The narrator explains his feelings about the eye: “One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture – a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold … I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Poe, 199). From this description can make some inference that he has a motive, but in a reality such a weak motive cannot be the reason for murder.

Going back again to William Hammond, he makes the point that motiveless murder or malignity could be as a result of insanity (Hammond, 626). And I strongly agree with his position, because a normal, reasonable person can’t have thoughts of killing another person just because of “the vulture eye”. Only sick people with a mental disorder can do such wrong things, as the narrator does in the short story The Tell-Tale Heart. It is, in direct sense, motiveless malignity according to the old man.

And another moment which forces us to understand mental disorder, madness and motiveless malignity of the narrator is his attitude to the old man and contradiction of the thoughts. He writes: “I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire” (Poe, 199). He has no real motive to murder this person, he fellows at that moment the power of madness and insanity, which blinds his mind. He does not see anything else, except “the vulture eye”. And if you love the person, can you then hurt him or her? It is a conflict within the mind. It is evidence of the sickness of the narrator.

With these words begins obvious evidences of madness of the narrator: “Madman know nothing” (Poe, 199). He follows the principles of his own mind which over control above him and he can’t distinguish what is real and what is not. He tries to think that can be predominant over the consciousness, but it is not true. “The vulture eye” does not give him peace, and the narrator wants, in any case, commit a justice and to be free from that feeling that furry him and make angry. Every night he comes to the room of the old man at the same time at midnight to watch over him. For seven nights it was just an observation, and finally by the eighth night he’s done it. At this fatal night, the old man awakes due to the suspicious sound and his eyes stay open. the old man awakes due to the suspicious sound and his eyes stay open. Exactly at that moment when the narrator looked at the “Evil Eye”, he immediately made up his mind to murder. Maybe, if this eye would be closed, he would not have done the crime that night. He is in captivity of his own horror dream, where “the vulture eye” is the scariest nightmare and his aim is to destroy it, and force it to disappear.

It is also a very strange moment when the narrator tries to come in in the room of the old man and makes some sound which forces the old man to awake: “I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down” (Poe, 200). What does this action really mean? Is it madness or just caution? In the same situation, a normal person would not do such an action as he does. That action looks so strange in all perspectives and is also evidence of madness of the narrator. As Georges Bataille and Annette Michelson claims: “The madman’s lack of appeal insures the grave severity of logic” (Bataille, 43). He has his own unique attempt to this affair. Staying still for a full hour without moving shows another condition, to another reality in which he is alone. He has a different world or imitation of the world within his mind and denies the real environment around him.

In regards to madness of the narrator, there are some episodes that prove his sickness and insanity. The first line shows us who the narrator really is: “True! – nervous – very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am” (Poe, 199). He does not deny that he has problems with his nerves. He notices that more than one time: “I have told you that I am nervous: so I am” (Poe, 201). And this fact is included as evidence of the insane condition of the narrator.

Finally, another important moment is the beating of the old man’s heart. After the murder and the dismembering of the body, he starts to hear the strange beating of the heart. And with the lapse of time this sound becomes louder and louder, especially when the police come to him and ask about the old man. He hid the body very well and there were no suspicions about the murder, but the sound of the beating heart grew louder within his mind. The narrator claims: “the noise steadily increased”, “It grew louder – louder - louder” (Poe, 202). He was at that time in his own created reality and can’t distinguish it from the real world. The noise of the heart forces him to confess to the murder of the old man.