Insanity In The Tell Tale Heart
Edgar Allen Poe’s narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart” reveals his own ego the readers. An arguably insane man begins to tell the story of how he murdered an elderly man, who seemed to be guilty of no more than having a “vulture eye”. He speaks highly of himself and the execution of his plan. “You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded-…”. The idea of priding ones self in murder alone would seem like madness to any person reading this, but to the narrator, everything he is about to reveal seems completely sane. With a narrator so oblivious to his madness, blinded by his ego, his sense of guilt is crooked. When in the company of the officers who had come to investigate, his
calm façade began to crumble, when he realized that nobody would know of the great effort he put in to committing this crime. Instead of being overcome by guilt like most people in his situation would have, he was overcome by his ego, and the desire for someone to fuel it. He began to shout “Villains! Dissemble no more! I admit the deed!- tear up the planks! Here, here! – it is the beating of his hideous heart!” and only in this moment is he able to relax again. There may have been reasons, aside from his ego, that the narrator’s sense of guilt was flawed. The murder he was committing seemed to be against an innocent man; however, the narrator may have seen his own demise in the man and in the man’s eye. He stated that he “loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! 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…” He confesses that it was the eye that drove him to kill the old man, the eye that he feared so much, they eye that he despised. So he did not feel overwhelming guilt when he killed the man, because he felt a wave of relief now that the eye of death had been removed from his life.
calm façade began to crumble, when he realized that nobody would know of the great effort he put in to committing this crime. Instead of being overcome by guilt like most people in his situation would have, he was overcome by his ego, and the desire for someone to fuel it. He began to shout “Villains! Dissemble no more! I admit the deed!- tear up the planks! Here, here! – it is the beating of his hideous heart!” and only in this moment is he able to relax again. There may have been reasons, aside from his ego, that the narrator’s sense of guilt was flawed. The murder he was committing seemed to be against an innocent man; however, the narrator may have seen his own demise in the man and in the man’s eye. He stated that he “loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! 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…” He confesses that it was the eye that drove him to kill the old man, the eye that he feared so much, they eye that he despised. So he did not feel overwhelming guilt when he killed the man, because he felt a wave of relief now that the eye of death had been removed from his life.