Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart

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There aren’t a whole lot of words a person can say or actions a person can do that can make someone question his or her sanity. However, the narrator in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” will have every single reader thinking that he is mad. There are many details in the haunting short story that prove that the narrator is insane. Evidence shows that he hears things, watched the old man in his sleep, and killed the old man for a very petty reason. To begin with, the narrator hears things in heaven and in hell. He also hears everything on Earth. This is shown when he states “I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell.” This means that he can perceive everything in heaven and Earth, and lots of things…show more content…
The narrator tells us that “every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.” This shows that he watched the old man for several nights, only to see his “evil eye.” The narrator also spent an incredible amount of time trying not to make noise or disturb the old man when he watched him. The narrator states “I moved it very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man’s sleep. It took me an hour to play my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed.” One night, when the old man woke up, the narrator “did not move a muscle” for a whole hour. This proves that the narrator tried not to wake up the old man and when he failed, he still tried not to get caught. Instead of continuing to watch the old man when he woke up, he could have walked away. A normal person would not remain watching a person, he or she would try to leave. Sane people do not watch others while they’re sleeping, and do not put an enormous amount of effort into not getting in trouble when they…show more content…
whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold… I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.” The old man did not “vex” the narrator, his “pale, blue eye” did. These quotes prove that the narrator killed the old man because of his eye, which is extremely trivial and irrational. A person kills because of jealousy, envy, or revenge. A person does not kill someone just because he or she dislikes what is on his or her face (well, someone who is insane
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