Madness from the Beating Heart!

"How then am I mad? Hearken! And observe how healthily-how calmly I can tell you the whole story" (Poe 1205). The narrator claims he was never truly mad. He never meant to harm the old man, but the vulture eye drove him to murder the old man. "It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night" (Poe 1206). The eye in "The Tale-Tell Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe symbolizes how mad the narrator truly is. The narrator insists that it his duty to kill the man with the evil eye because he can no longer bear to observe the horrifying sight.

He has become obsessed with the eye and when he concise the ultimate plan. Proving the narrator has to be pronounced insane. Although he could not pin point at the time of the explanation of the murder, he is convinced it was the old man's eye. The narrator then goes on to explain how he did not hate the old man but he hated his eye. "I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this" (Poe 1206)! In reality he was disguising his mental stabilization with the blame of the eye. The narrator who is a very guilty person as to it he portrays himself to get rid of it. "I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever" (Poe 1206). He has much hate for the eye, because he sees himself in the refection of the eye.

With that glimpse of himself causes him to in reality hate himself. He sees all his flaws when he looks upon the eye. That is why he cannot kill the old man in his sleep because he does not see the "evil" until the eye is open. "And this I did for seven long nights, every night just at midnight, but I found the eye always closed, and so it was impossible to do the work, for it was not the old man who vexed me but his Evil Eye"(Poe 1206). The eye is also references as a mirror. As stated, "all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones, but I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person" (Poe 1207).

The narrator kills the man with pride only to concede to his horrific crime due to his guilt-ridden heart. "I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart" (Poe 1207). Capturing the narrator has no remorse, and encompasses all evil and has no heart. The beating heart starts only after the crime has been committed, and gets more and more intense the more he tries to confidently deny his crime. "Now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton" (Poe 1207).