The Tell-Tale Heart

The Tell-Tale Heart

Through the first person narrator, Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" illustrates how man's imagination is capable of being so vivid that it profoundly affects people's lives. The manifestation of the narrator's imagination unconsciously plants seeds in his mind, and those seeds grow into an unimaginable situation for which there is no room for reason and which culminates in murder.

The fixation on the old mans vulture-like eye forces the narrator to concoct a plan to eliminate the old man. The narrator confesses the sole reason for killing the old man is his eye. "Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold, and by so degrees – very gradually – I made up my mind to rid myself of the eye forever." (34) The narrator begins his tale of betrayal by trying to convince the reader he is not insane, but the reader quickly surmises the narrator indeed is out of control. The fact that the old man's eye is the only motivation to murder proves the narrator is so mentally unstable that he must search for justification to kill. In his mind, he rationalizes murder with his own unreasonable fear of the eye.

The narrator wrestles with conflicting feelings of responsibility to the old man and feeling his life of the man's "Evil Eye" (34). Although afflicted with overriding fear and derangement, the narrator still acts with quasi-allegiance toward the old man. However, his kindness may stem from protecting himself from suspicion of watching the old man every night than from genuine compassion for the old man. The narrator show his contrariety when he confesses he loves the old man, but he is still too overwhelmed by the pale blue eye to restrain himself from the all-consuming desire to eliminate the eye. His struggle is evident as he waits to kill the old man is his sleep so that he won't have to face the old man when he kills him; but on the other hand, the narrator can't justify the killing unless the vulture eye was open. The narrator is finally able to...

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