The Tell-Tale Heart: Unreliable Narrator

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The Unreliable Narrator


The narrator in Edgar Allen Poe’s story “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a psychotic murderer who kills an older man who lives with him. He tells us his entire story very “calmly” as if murder is a casual thing. He kills the older man and buries him under the planks. Later, he confesses to some officers of the murder because of the loud heartbeats of the man’s heart, in which symbolizes the narrator’s conscious. The way the narrator told his story is unreliable because he is not sane, he is uneasy and paranoid, and he is confused about what he really feels and thinks.


Firstly, one reason the narrator is unreliable is because of his insanity. Many times throughout the story he claims he is not insane, yet why would a person have to prove their saneness? Everytime he does something an insane person would do, he refers to it as being wise, “You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing.”(6) His saneness leads him to believe he has so called powers, “…I felt the extent of my own powers�of my sagacity.”(6) We know a sane person would not kill a person because they have a problem with their eye. A normal sane person would not be as paranoid as the narrator in the story is.


Further stressing the narrator’s unreliability is his unease and paranoia. The very first paragraph of the story Poe writes, “True!--nervous�very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am…the disease had sharpened my senses�not destroyed�not dulled them….Above all was the sense of hearing acute”(6). This shows just how paranoid he is. When a person is paranoid and uneasy they pay more attention to their surrounding. The narrator’s stronger sense was hearing, mainly because it was dark in the house. Poe uses exclamation points throughout the story to show the narrators excitement in the story. They punctuation is very obvious in the end of the story when his conscious gets hold of him. The way Poe uses the punctuation show us that the narrator is uneasy and paranoid about his story yet proud of his accomplishment. Clearly, the narrator here is quite proud of the plan he has contrived, and the way in which he executed it. He does setup the old man by making him feel secure. He is also very careful with how he approaches the man, never making a sound. All the paranoia and unease gave him keen senses making him think he was unbelievably sagacious.


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Lastly, the narrator tells us he wants to kill the man because of his “evil eye”, but we know it is another reason behind it. He seems to be confused about how he really feels about the man, or doesn’t want anyone to know the real reason. He never really stated it was the eye official as he says states, “I think it was his eye!”(6) Already mysterious and gothic the narrator uses the eye as an excuse to kill the man. The narrator doesnt appear to withhold any information, but it does appear as if he is attempting to protect his real feeling about the older man. The narrators insanity does confuse him to believe that what he is ingenious. We can look at how at the end how the narrator confused his own conscious with the old man’s heart beating. We can look at this and tell he did care about the old man. If he did not care about the man his conscious would not have bothered him.


The narrator insanity, paranoia, and confusion let us know he is unreliable. Poe did this to make his readers think and wonder why the character would do such a thing. The beating of the heart causes him to tell his tale.





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