The Tell-Tale Heart Guilt

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“The Tell-Tale Heart” written by Edgar Allen Poe, was told from the viewpoint of a “madman” narrator who we do not know. The man has an unknown illness, most likely a mental illness. He plans and stalks the old man that he wants to murder. The reasoning behind the murder is because of the old man’s “pale-blue eye … eye of a vulture.” Readers can assume that the reasoning behind the narrator wanting to kill the old man is absurd, he even stated that “he loved him”, and he had no hate towards him. The narrator’s obsession with the old man’s eye and feelings of guilt drive him insane and causes him to not only kill an innocent man, but also confess to his crime. “He had the eye of a vulture – a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it …show more content…
Though the narrator was not in his right mind, his feelings of guilt took over his emotions once he was confronted by the policemen. The madman took the officers to the chamber and sat overtop the dead man’s body, if these actions alone do not prove how psychotic the narrator is, then what will? Earlier in the story he stated, “The disease had sharpened by senses”, his sense of hearing had grown, and he was able to hear even the most muffled sounds, one sound he heard the most was the beating of the man’s heart while lying dead under the floor boards. The narrator was extremely confident that he would not be caught by the police. He was so insane that he believed the heart of the man was still beating though he was dead. This disease had not sharpened his senses, but instead caused him to go crazy. The man’s conscience was so guilty that he became overpowered and paranoid by the beat of the old man’s heart, the sounds were unbearable and at once had to confess of the crime he committed, “But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! … I admit the
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