In the short story The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, the main theme is portrayed by the narrator and how he is unreliable and insane no matter how hard he tries to prove to the audience that he is not. One of the most important aspects of narrative is person, which often determines the perspective from which a story is told. A first-person narrative involves the main character telling a story from his own perspective. The narrator starts the story by explaining to the reader that he is not mad but sane; he believes that his killing is like methodical. With these sick plans, it is amazing how the author makes the narrator so sick, twisted and unreliable. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening So far thatI might not disturb the old mans sleep.(E.A.P p.197) For one thing, his reason for Committing the murder is neither for money nor for a passion for Killing but rather because he teared the old mans pale blue eyes, For his goldI had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, It was this this! He had the eye of a vulture-a pale blue eye with a film over it. (p.197) Even after this, he does not believe he is crazy. Clearly to the audience, this character is flawed with insanity. By obsessively checking up on the old man, in his apartment late at night, the intensity ot his tear and anger grow until he decides one day that he must end the old mans life.
While making his usual checking up on the old man, the tormer wakes up and shrieks in fear knowing that there is someone in the room with him. Staying perfectly still, the narrator observes that this old man is very fearful and stays up thinking about it. Also keeping him up, is what he believes is the loud terrified heartbeat of the old man and he worries that because of its intensity, the neighbors may wake up. Afraid that the neighbors might hear it, he slays the old man and dismembers him; he lays the pieces of the body under the rooms floorboards hoping no one will ever find it. Later in the morning, an officer is at the door because the neighbors have reported a shriek in the room and he came to investigate it. Being careful not to be too suspicious, the narrator leads the oficer all over the house, including the room. Suddenly, the thumping sound of the heart under the floorboards begins and starts to get louder and louder and the narrator ponders whether or not everyone else can hear it. He starts to panic and eventualy gives confesses to the murder.
It may be believed that the heart thumping that he hears does not belong to the old man himself, but to the narrator. Even though he tries very hard to prove to the reader that he is calm and that the man IS rather frightened, It is really he murderer who is nervous and frightened. Mistaking the old mans heartbeat tor his own, ne ends up turning him in. Because of this episode, it may be seen that he is unreliable. Undoubtedly, our murderer is crazy and insane and the reader cannot believe anything that he accounts for, the narrator can not tell his Own heart beat from anothers. In conclusion, although the narrator tries to persuade the reader to believe that he is sane, the reader will always know that he is really insane. Edgar Allan Poe emphasizes on the point of view of the character as his most important element of literature in order to depict the narrators insanity. The way the author writes this story shows how people can be very strange at times for no odd reason.
