The Tell Tale Heart - Edgar Allan Poe

• The Tell-Tale Heart - Edgar Allan Poe


  Main themes - Paranoia/Anxiety, Guilt, Madness, Time, Unreliable Narrator
• “—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?” - The Tell Tale Heart


  ellipses, delusion, denial of his mental state, confused
• “He had the eye of a vulture — a pale blue eye, with a film over it.”


  vulture - watching him, projects his desire to kill, suggests preying on the sick/elderly, not seeing clearly links with the narrator not being able to see his own insanity
• “You fancy me mad — you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded—“


  pride in what he did, suggests he believes he has true sanity over everyone else
• “Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers—of my sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph.”


  narcissism, sagacity - intelligence, sees himself maybe more than human??
• “It is the beating of his hideous heart!”

  his own heart, undone by his own imagination, has a lack of control, still doesn’t blame himself but more the old man for foiling his plans
• “such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man’s heart.”


  enveloped in cotton - suffocated, his own heart, connection between the two characters yet doesn’t want to admit it’s his own heart still
• “the heart beat on with a muffled sound.” “there was no pulsation. he was stone dead. his eye would trouble me no more.”


  his own heart, stone - unmoving cold and hard, feels relief because of this, links with paranoia again
• “no, no! they heard! —they suspected!—they knew!—they were making a mockery of my horror!-this i thought, and this is think.”


  paranoia fully taking over him, staggered speech with dashes and exclamation shows the true fear he has, worried about the beating of the “old man’s” (his own) heart giving him away
• “you should have seen how wisely I proceeded —with what caution— with what foresight —with what dissimulation I went to work!”


  proud, suggests he is the sane one due to how much thought and work he put into the situation, trying to relate with the reader
• the narrator - murderer, paranoid and narcissistic, takes pride in his crime, could be mentally ill
• the old man - the victim, has done literally nothing wrong, has his own paranoia as the story goes on until his death, loss of autonomy after death, insignifigant