Insanity In The Tell Tale Heart

Fear resides in each individual. It is an emotion that no human being can avoid. In the short story The Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar Allan Poe uses elements such as the first-person narrator and imagery to set a fearful atmosphere throughout the story. Poe’s usage of a first-person narrator gives the readers an insight of the protagonist’s thoughts. The main character first tries to prove his sanity. Despite the fact that he did kill an old man, he still tries to convince the readers that he has not gone mad: “TRUE!-nervous-very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?” (20) Thus, from the very beginning of the story, a sense of insanity can be detected in the main character because of his brief stops and