Tell Tale Heart Edgar Allen Poe Summary Analysis

In The Tell Tale Heart, Poe illustrates a story of a person that is psychologically disturbed. However, the narrator claims he is sane by telling the readers how calm and careful he is. The story starts off with the narrator explaining his reasoning for wanting to kill the old man. His passion grew not from money or greed, but from his hatred of the old man’s pale blue eyes, the Evil Eye. The narrator separates the vulture eye from the old man because although he is obsessed with getting rid
of the eye, he loves the old man. However the realization of it is that the eye and the old man are one, so he ends up killing both. This portrays situational irony because the narrator is clearing insane. Another way Poe illustrates irony is how the narrator’s accurate and precise senses doom him. The narrator triumphs himself as he is able to ever so slightly open the door, be patience as he waited for perfect timing, able to distinguish the groans of pure fear, and end the old man’s life with one strike. However in the end, the narrator’s confidence crumbles as he hears the imagined noise of the dead man’s heartbeat amplify. He believes the police are mocking him as the sound of the heartbeat is too loud for them to not notice. At this point the mood turns very suspenseful because the heartbeat gets louder and louder making the narrator more anxious. The narrator is unable to distinguish what is in his head and what reality is and ends up admitting his wrongful deed.

Although the paragraph above portrays the narrator as being a man, the gender of the narrator is not revealed. However, there are parts in story that indicate that it could be either a man or a woman. At the beginning, the narrator states, “ I loved the old man.” This could mean that the narrator was the old man’s wife or lover. In this story, the narrator takes care of the old man meaning that she could be his wife or maid, and it would be more common that a woman would be a maid or a caretaker of an old man in that time period. When the narrator finally killed the old man, this scene indicated that the narrator could be a man. The narrator threw the bed over the old man which directs the reader to think of a man since they are more stronger and powerful.