The Tale-Tell Heart
Matthew Rico
English 1302
Anthony Buenning
30 November 2012
The Tell-Tale Heart Final Draft Has it ever crossed our mind to murder someone? Maybe it was a physical deficiency that drove us into hating them and their disfigurement, and it led to us to hurt them. Have we ever felt the rush of taking someone’s life, or the responsibility that follows such a dreadful deed? The narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” has felt all of this. As you go through the story, the reader can see how mentally unstable the narrator truly is. He begins to show us his lunacy because of the dreadful deed he did just to get rid of an old man with a distorted eye. He believes that slaying the old man is the sane and right thing to do. In the end, his insanity leads him to plead guilty to his own terrible deed. First, the narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” establishes his insanity because he wants to murder the old man due to his “vulture eye” (Poe). The narrator’s fondness and admiration for the old man is dominated by his mania with that “pale blue eye” (Poe). He wants to kill the old man because of his eye, because he senses that the eye is always observing him and evaluating him and he feels condemned under its gaze (Poe). The narrator references many times in the story that he would like the eye to go away forever (Poe). Not only does he unmistakably admit his animosity of the eye, but he also repeats and repeats how much he scorns the old man’s eye (Poe). The narrator even admits that the old man has “never wronged” him or “given him insult”, but that “it was the eye” (Poe). This shows a psychological obsession with the old man’s eye. He is possessed with the idea that the eye is evil and that it is affect him negatively (Rajan). After all his ranting about details of the eye, he finally says he wants to kill the old man to “kill the eye” (Poe). This will close the eye’s disturbing gaze forever, because it is the “right thing” to do, for him. The next demonstration of
English 1302
Anthony Buenning
30 November 2012
The Tell-Tale Heart Final Draft Has it ever crossed our mind to murder someone? Maybe it was a physical deficiency that drove us into hating them and their disfigurement, and it led to us to hurt them. Have we ever felt the rush of taking someone’s life, or the responsibility that follows such a dreadful deed? The narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” has felt all of this. As you go through the story, the reader can see how mentally unstable the narrator truly is. He begins to show us his lunacy because of the dreadful deed he did just to get rid of an old man with a distorted eye. He believes that slaying the old man is the sane and right thing to do. In the end, his insanity leads him to plead guilty to his own terrible deed. First, the narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” establishes his insanity because he wants to murder the old man due to his “vulture eye” (Poe). The narrator’s fondness and admiration for the old man is dominated by his mania with that “pale blue eye” (Poe). He wants to kill the old man because of his eye, because he senses that the eye is always observing him and evaluating him and he feels condemned under its gaze (Poe). The narrator references many times in the story that he would like the eye to go away forever (Poe). Not only does he unmistakably admit his animosity of the eye, but he also repeats and repeats how much he scorns the old man’s eye (Poe). The narrator even admits that the old man has “never wronged” him or “given him insult”, but that “it was the eye” (Poe). This shows a psychological obsession with the old man’s eye. He is possessed with the idea that the eye is evil and that it is affect him negatively (Rajan). After all his ranting about details of the eye, he finally says he wants to kill the old man to “kill the eye” (Poe). This will close the eye’s disturbing gaze forever, because it is the “right thing” to do, for him. The next demonstration of
Cited: Matthey Bynum, Paige. ""Observe How Healthily--How Calmly I Can Tell You the Whole Story": Moral Insanity and Edgar Allan Poe 's "The Tell-Tale Heart” “Edgar Allan Poe 's "The Tell-tale Heart" and Other Stories. New York: Bloom 's Literary Criticism, 2009. 69-80. Print. Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Tale-Tell Heart.” An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Eds. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 11th Edition. New York: Longman, 2010. 37-40. Rajan, Gita. "A Feminist Rereading Of Poe 's 'The Tell-Tale Heart '." Papers On Language & Literature 24.3 (1988): 283. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Nov. 2012. Zimmerman, Brett. "Frantic Forensic Oratory: Poe 's "The Tell-Tale Heart." Style 35.1 (2001): 34. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Nov. 2012.