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Analysis Of Edgar Allan Poe's Tell Tale Heart

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In the depths of the night, a loud shriek comes from a man who would later be assassinated and hidden under the floorboards of his own chamber. In Edgar Allan Poe’s Tell Tale Heart, the story of this murder is told from the point of view of the killer. The narrator tells of the man’s vulture-like eye, which causes him to murder the man to rid himself forever of the villainy the eye possessed. After the murder, the narrator is haunted by the sound of the man’s beating heart to the point that he has to admit to his felony. In this ghastly tale, the narrator is guilty of premeditated murder because he had a reason to kill the man, knew right from wrong throughout the story, and had a plan to kill the old man in advance.
To start, the …show more content…

In addition to the fact that the narrator understood that murdering someone is wrong, the narrator has a motive for killing the old man. Right off the bat, the narrator tells the reader why he wanted to kill the old man. He says, “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. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees—very gradually—I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever.” This indicates that he had a clear rationale for killing the old man and is guilty of first degree, or premeditated murder. Some may argue that the narrator is mentally insane and killed the man because over an irrational fear caused by his mental illness. However, an insane person would not wait to terminate a powerful feeling of paranoia and to assassinate the person causing such fear.
The idea that the narrator was patient enough to wait to kill the old man gives a final indication. As well as having a specific desire to assassinate the elderly man, the narrator had a plan to go about his killing. This is exhibited when the narrator says, “I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him.” This is the first indication that he

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