Edger Allan Poe seems to prefer representing the narrator as a
person who makes readers question his sanity. Interestingly, we, as readers,
cannot even be certain if the narrator is female or male. As in his story 'The
Black Cat,' the narrator of the Tell Tale Heart has a questionable sanity. He
tries to prove his sanity by admitting and explaining the crime that he commits
(the murder of an old man) in a great detail, which in fact, is a self
destructive action. His motif of his murder is one of the main factors of what
makes this story so supernatural. He claims that the old man had an evil eye that
haunted him all the time. At the end, he’s guilt makes him hearing the sound of
heart beating and confess his own crime. Readers cannot tell if this evil eye
is a creation of his imagination or real. Add to this, the relationship between
the narrator and the old man is not specified in this story, which makes the
readers question the real motif of murder. Was the narrator telling the truth?
Or …..was there another reason that he had murdered the old man?
Post arguments, interpretative questions, and engaging responses on the week's reading.
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