Narrator’s Appearance, Actions, and Personality
The killing of the old man portrays the narrator as being violent. He murders him because he thought that the old man had an evil eye and disposed of the body under the floorboard to hide from us, the police. The narrator portrays himself as being unbalanced or seemly insane (Poe, 1843). Although he narrates the turn of events to the reader to prove his sanity, he proves to be mentally disturbed in the end based on our evaluation as the police.
He is delusional and haunted by the idea that the old man’s eye is evil and makes his blood cold. He feels guilty and says that the old man’s heartbeat sounds so loud that he could not ignore it. He later decides to tell us the truth as we proceed with investigations. The narrator is also obsessed with the idea that the old man’s eye is evil; thus, he sneaks around his room to see the ‘evil’ eye. Even though the old man is rich in gold, the narrator is not interested in his wealth.
From our investigations, it is evident that the old man and the narrator have a close relationship since they live in the same house, and the narrator trying to greet the old man every morning. The narrator is aware of the old man’s kindness to him but still decides to take away his life. This action portrays him as ungrateful (Robinson, 1965). on the contrary, the narrator also comes across as a warm and welcoming person, going by how he treats the policemen to the house. Finally, he is paranoid, with fear caused by the guilty of killing the old man.
Reference
Poe, E. A. (1843). The tell-tale heart.
https://repositorio.ufsc.br/bitstream/handle/123456789/132720/The_Tell-Tale_Heart_(Edgar_Allan_Poe_1843).pdf?sequence=1
Robinson, E. A. (1965). Poe’s” The Tell-Tale Heart.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 19(4), 369-
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