The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

Short Summary

An unnamed narrator opens the story by addressing the reader and claiming that he is nervous but
not mad. He says that he is going to tell a story in which he will defend his sanity yet confess to
having killed an old man. His motivation was neither passion nor desire for money, but rather a
fear of the man’s pale blue eye. Again, he insists that he is not crazy because his cool and
measured actions, though criminal, are not those of a madman. Every night, he went to the old
man’s apartment and secretly observed the man sleeping. In the morning, he would behave as if
everything were normal. After a week of this activity, the narrator decides, somewhat randomly,
that the time is right actually to kill the old man

When the narrator arrives late on the eighth night, though, the old man wakes up and cries out.
The narrator remains still, stalking the old man as he sits awake and frightened. The narrator
understands how frightened the old man is, having also experienced the lonely terrors of the
night. Soon, the narrator hears a dull pounding that he interprets as the old man’s terrified
heartbeat. Worried that a neighbor might hear the loud thumping, he attacks and kills the old
man. He then dismembers the body and hides the pieces below the floorboards in the bedroom.
He is careful not to leave even a drop of blood on the floor. As he finishes his job, a clock strikes
the hour of four. At the same time, the narrator hears a knock at the street door. The police have
arrived, having been called by a neighbor who heard the old man shriek. The narrator is careful to
be chatty and to appear normal. He leads the officers all over the house without acting
suspiciously. At the height of his bravado, he even brings them into the old man’s bedroom to sit
down and talk at the scene of the crime. The policemen do not suspect a thing. The narrator is
comfortable until he starts to hear a low thumping sound. He recognizes the low sound as the
heart of the old man, pounding away beneath the floorboards. He panics, believing that the
policemen must also hear the sound and know his guilt. Driven mad by the idea that they are
mocking his agony with their pleasant chatter, he confesses to the crime and shrieks at the men to
rip up the floorboards.
Possible Questions

QUESTIONS

1. Who is the author of this story?

The author of the story is Edgar Allan Poe. He was an American writer with a
tormented life. Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809, and died on October
7, 1849. He married to his cousin. Poe lived in some of the important literary centers
of the northeastern United States: Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston.
He was a magazine editor, a poet, a short story writer, a critic, and a lecturer. Poe
became a key figure in the nineteenth-century flourishing of American letters and
literature.

2- What is the story about? Explain4

Short summary

3- What is interesting about the narrator? How would you describe him? Does the narrator
address to the reader? Why? Give examples from the story.

Poe’s narrators are unnamed and often unreliable. They claim their sanity and then proceed to
detail their pathological madness

Poe’s first-person narrators produce unreliable confessions. They control the narrative, and we see
only through their eyes. However, they describe their own pathological actions so meticulously
that they demonstrate that they are actually insane. They are unable to step back from their
narratives to discern their own madness

Even though he knows that we, the readers, might consider him mad for this decision, yet he plans
to prove his sanity by showing how "wisely" and with what extreme precaution, foresight, and
dissimulation he executed his deeds. Every night at twelve o'clock, he would slowly open the door,
"oh so gently," and would quietly and cunningly poke his head very slowly through the door. It
would sometimes take him an hour to go that far — "would a madman have been so wise as this?"
he asks, thus showing, he hopes, how thoroughly objective he can be while commenting on the
horrible deed he committed

4- What are the themes of the story?

 LOVE AND 4
Poe explores the similarity of love and hate in “The Tell-Tale Heart” . Poe portrays the
psychological complexity of these two supposedly opposite emotions, emphasizing the
 ways they enigmatically blend into each other. Poe interpreted love and hate as universal
emotions, thereby severed from the specific conditions of time and space.
 Guilt and Innocence
The guilt of the narrator is a major theme in ‘‘The Tell-Tale Heart.’’ The story is about a
mad person who, after killing a companion for no apparent reason, hears an interminable
heartbeat and releases his overwhelming sense of guilt by shouting his confession to the
police.
The narrator never pretends to be innocent, fully admitting that he has killed the old man
because of the victim’s pale blue, film-covered eye which the narrator believes to be a
malignant force. The narrator suggests that there are uncontrollable forces which can
drive people to commit violent acts. In the end, however, Poe’s skillful writing allows the
reader to sympathize with the narrator’s miserable state despite fully recognizing that he
is guilty by reason of insanity.
 Sanity and Insanity
Closely related to the theme of guilt and innocence is the issue of sanity. From the first
line of the story—‘‘True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but
why will you say that I am…. The narrator is trying to convince the reader that what he is
doing is right, and that he is not insane.
The narrator’s attempt to prove his sanity, his erratic mannerisms while he explains his
meticulous plans for killing the old man only prove his madness.

5- Identify symbols in the story. What do they stand for?

Symbolism is a popular literary device; it describes when an author uses an object to stand for or
represent something else. In ''The Tell-Tale Heart,'' there are two main symbols: the old man's eye
and the beating heart.

EYE: In the story, the narrator becomes obsessed with the old man's eye. He thinks it looks like
''the eye of a vulture,'' and whenever he looks at it, the narrator becomes cold and fearful. This
eye eventually drives the narrator to kill the man. For this reason, the eye is considered to be a
symbol of evil.

HEART : The second major symbol in this short story is the beating heart, which represents the
narrator's conscience. After he kills the old man, the narrator starts to hear the loudly beating
heart of the dead man. This increasingly loud noise causes the man to feel guilty, and as a result,
he pulls up the floorboards and confesses to his crime.
The Tell Tale Heart

6) What does the title mean?

The Tell Tale Heart is among the shortest stories written by Edgar Allan Poe. While the title may
sound a bit strange, it is still a fitting title for the short story. Right from the beginning, the narrator
starts defending his sanity. It becomes evident has been trying to hide something in his heart. He
claims he has been ill but still has complete control of his mind. However, while it might be true,
his heart is definitely not under his control. The heart is one of the most important symbols used
in the story and implies human emotions.

While it might be easy for someone to hide his thoughts, he cannot completely hide his emotions
from himself or others. This is what the author proves at the end of the story. While trying his best
to hide his emotions from the police men, the narrator ends up revealing the truth. A reading of
the story shows that he is clearly paranoid and hears various kinds of sounds. The narrator claims
that his illness has sharpened his senses and he is receiving sounds from the heaven and hell.
However, that cannot be true and his argument sounds childish and false indicating his insanity.

However, it is not the narrator’s mind but his heart that helps the policemen discover the truth.
The narrator pretends to be friendly to the policemen and politely asks them in on the next day of
the murder. He is bold enough to take them to the room where he committed the murder and is
hiding the body in pieces. The policemen are sitting there and talking to the bastard who believes
he has finally found success in his game. The narrator believes he can successfully hide everything
in his heart but finally gives up to the intensifying pressure. On the night he murdered the old
man, the narrator heard loud thumping of the victim’s heart. While he believes it was the loud
thumping of the old man’s heart he could hear, it must have been his own heart. Someone must
be paranoid enough to believe he can hear someone’s heart thumping from a few metres away.
The narrator is clearly insane and trying to hide his own fear and anxiety. He is nervous at the time
of the murder and waits an hour at the door before finally pouncing on the old man. The next
morning as the policemen arrive, the narrator talks to them and does his best to hide his real
emotions. However, while in the room where he committed the murder, the narrator’s heart again
starts beating loudly out of anxiety. He has kept his fear suppressed while talking to the policemen
but the situation does not last long. Soon, he is overcome so much by fear and anxiety that he
finds it unbearable to stop that deafening thumping sound from falling into his ears. He still
believes that it is the old man’s heart beating under the floor and even the policemen can hear it

So, his heart betrays him and reveals the entire truth. He pours it all out and lets the policemen
know where he buried the old man’s body. If it was not for the loud beating of his heart, he might
have successfully gotten away with a heinous crime. However, he cannot bring his anxiety under
control and at last gives in to fear. It is not a tell-tale mind but a tell-tale heart. The narrator can
hide everything in his mind but his emotional state reveals the truth. The author has selected an
appropriate and interesting title for the story.
7) What is the narrator’s motivation behind killing the old man? Why does the narrator kill
the old man in the Tell Tale Heart?

The narrator is clearly insane despite his desperately defending his sanity in the opening
paragraphs and throughout most of the rest of the story. He notes that there is no clear source of
motivation for killing the old man. He does not even remember how the idea cropped up in his
mind but it clearly did and he wanted to kill the old man.

The narrator is a paranoid and hears sounds from heaven and hell. While he believes his senses
and especially his hearing has grown stronger since he fell ill, it is really difficult to believe that a
sane man would hear such noises. These noises are disturbing his mind and not allowing him to
think clearly. He cannot forget the old man’s pale vulture like eyes. His fear of those eyes has
turned into rage and he is losing self-control.

As the narrator says,

” Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me.
He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this!
One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture — a pale blue eye, with a film over it. “

The narrator does not want the old man’s wealth and there is no purpose for revenge either. As
the narrator acknowledges in the story, the old man has never offended him. However, it becomes
clear from the reading of the story that the old man is living without a family and so is the
narrator. It is the neighbors who heard the old man’s cry on the night of the murder.

The narrator’s mental situation is unstable. Even on the night he murdered the old man, he
believes that he is hearing the poor victim’s heartbeats. However, that is not possible since any
person cannot hear another’s heartbeat from even a meter or two away.

It all shows that the narrator is in a poor state of mind and tries to hide his mental and emotional
state from the readers throughout the story. Might be he also hallucinates about heaven and hell.
However, the only motivation that is clear from the reading of the story is the narrator’s fear of
the old man’s eyes. Those eyes appear odd and evil to the narrator. He cannot shake those eyes
off from his mind that appear to be staring at him like a vulture watches its prey.

The fear and hatred inside the narrator have been growing. He cannot think of a way to get rid of
those eyes without killing the old man. While it is the narrator’s insanity that is clearly the main
reason that he killed the old man, his fear of the old man’s eyes and the resulting anxiety pushed
him to commit the crime.

However, there can also be another hidden motivation behind the old man’s murder. Since the
narrator is an insane person, an old and weak man can be an easy prey. The eyes are just an
excuse. It is the old man’s age and helplessness that the pretentious and insane narrator might
have felt incited to kill him and vent an inner rage that fuels from nowhere but his own insanity
and anxiety.

8) What are the two main symbols in the story The Tell Tale Heart? What does each one
represent? What is one other symbol Poe might have chosen?

The two main symbols in the Tell Tale Heart are the eyes and the heart. The narrator describes the
old man’s eye as a pale blue eye with a film over it. He cannot bear the old man’s eyes because
they look like that of a vulture. The narrator is reminded of those birds of prey that tear dead flesh
with their beaks. He does not have any other reason to kill the old man. In fact, it is just the eye
and he does not dislike anything else about the old man. The eye compels him to kill the old man.

Another important symbol is the heart. While the old man’s eye compels the insane narrator to kill
him, it is the narrator’s own heart that forces him to confess the crime. However, the narrator
keeps thinking that it is the old man’s heart beats he can hear. When he is inside the room to
commit the murder and the next day when he is in the same room with the policemen and trying
to hide his crime, he again hears the same heartbeat

While the eye denotes sanity and wisdom, which the narrator lacks, the heart denotes, human
conscience and emotions. The narrator is also lacking in terms of emotions. However, despite
trying his best, he is unable to hide his real emotions before the policemen. He tries all the time to
be sly and fool them. However, his anxiety and nervousness grow so high and his heart beats so
loudly that he feels his secret is revealed. The narrator feels everyone in the room can hear the
heart beat which is coming from under the floor and spills the secret out.

Dead men tell no tale. It is the narrator’s own heart that beats so hard that he cannot bear to hide
the secret. While there are many symbols that Poe could have chosen from, the heart is
irreplaceable in the context of this story. It symbolizes trust, love, humanity, and many more
things. The helpless old man could not protest or save himself from the narrator because he was
old and weak. However, the cunning narrator’s fear grew so heavy that if he himself did not
confess, he might have lost control of his mind.

The author could also have used other symbols to denote wisdom and human conscience. For
example, the sound of church bells could also imply a similar meaning. However, in the context of
the given story nothing fits better than the eye and heart.

8) What is some evidence that shows that the narrator is insane in the Tell Tale Heart?

While the narrator continually defends his sanity since the beginning of the story, there is still a lot
of evidence that points towards his insanity and lack of conscience. The brutality of his crime and
his claim that he has a healthy mind offer strong evidence that he is not in a sound mental state.
Apart from it, his obsession with the old man’s pale blue eyes also shows that he is having some
problem in terms of understanding others.

The narrator might be dealing with schizophrenia or paranoia, as he finds it difficult to resist his
rage when he thinks of the old man’s vulture like eyes. Another strong evidence that proves that
the narrator is insane is his claim that he can hear sounds from the heaven and hell. The narrator
claims that he has been ill but he has still retained control of his mind. However, the illness has
sharpened his hearing and he can hear sounds from afar. On the night of the murder, he hears the
beating of the old man’s heart and feels afraid that his neighbors might also hear the loud noise.
However, no sane person can hear the beating of someone’s heart from a distance.

He is having his own delusions and perhaps he also hallucinates. Perhaps, the old man’s presence
diminishes his self-importance which might be a side effect of the narrator’s mental illness. The
narrator also appears sly because while his crime is brutal, he tries to paint an evil picture of the
old man. To prove his sanity he claims that no insane man can work with the accuracy he did. No
mad man can demonstrate the same dissimulation and foresight as him.
Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me,
You should have seen how wisely I proceeded – with what caution – with what foresight- with
what dissimulation I went to work!

He speaks like a surgeon who is going to eliminate a disease by removing an eye. However, his
method is brutal and his attempt to disguise his feelings also proves his insanity and inability to
control his emotions. The strongest proof of his insanity comes at the end of the story when he is
unable to resist a nervous breakdown and ends up spilling the beans. Soon as he thinks he has
successfully hidden his crime from the policemen, his heart starts beating harder. He feels like
being laughed at by the policemen whom he believes are hearing the same deafening heart beats
of the dead old man as him. These are not the signs of sanity since dead people’s hearts do not
beat but according to the narrator they do. There are several things peculiar about the narrator
but that’s also what makes the story interesting.

10) Can the narrator in The Tell Tale Heart be considered reliable?

The narrator in the Tell Tale Heart cannot be considered reliable. It is his mental state that makes
him unreliable. His style of narration also casts a shadow of doubt on his reliability. He tries to
appear innocent of the crime that he himself accepts to have committed. At the beginning of the
story, he starts defending his sanity and tries to prove that he has complete control of his mind. A
person having a sane mind would not do that.

There are contradictions in his story which make him an unreliable narrator. He claims he loves the
old man and there is nothing to provoke him to kill the helpless soul apart from an eye that
appears evil. Clearly, there is more than meets the eyes in the case of the narrator. He hates the
old man’s eyes and wants to get rid of them. However, this does not make a lot of sense. It seems
he is just trying to fool the audience by using the eyes as an excuse. The old man’s eyes look like
that of a vulture to the narrator. He has an intense dislike for those eyes and feels provoked to kill
the old man. The old man is no monster, but the narrator does his best to hide the monster inside
him. His insanity is one reason that he cannot be relied upon but the other reason is his mindset
and the monstrosity he commits without the slightest provocation.

If he is capable of such monstrosity, he is inhuman and there is no explanation behind his evil
behavior. Relying on his account only will misguide the audience. Killing someone is not a child’s
play and the narrator claims that he has exercised a lot of caution and precision to commit the
murder. Even if that does not prove the murderer insane, it does not prove him honest either. He
says he hears sounds from heaven and hell. Even a child would find it difficult to believe. The
narrator also omits some parts of the story in a manner that makes readers doubt his character.