The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, structures a narrative surrounding the murder of an old man, a man in which the narrator claims to have loved. The unreliability of the narrator plays an integral role in both the pacing and underlying themes of the narrative, with the contradicting statements of the narrator being utilised by Poe to potentially create an unconscious confession of madness from the principal speaker. Furthermore, the interactivity of the narrator and their environment, further adds to the deceptive tale of events which acts to convolute an otherwise absolute matter withal.
Through the narrator’s recollection of events, it becomes clear to see throughout the piece, that the reliability of what the narrator claims, are unconvincing at best, as they continually contradict themselves during events presented in the piece. As the speaker initially states, “I loved the old man”, he, if we can assume it to be a he due to the sociocultural context and time in which the narrative was written, directly challenges his own claims with his actions against the old man. Furthermore, his proclamation of love for the old man can be interpreted as a means in which he justifies his sin, yet farther on in the narrative, we are introduced to the somewhat questionable motif behind the crime, that being the old man’s “…Evil Eye.” This confession only
Nevertheless, the question of who the audience of the narrative is,