In the tell-tale heart, Edgar Allan Poe’s shows his ability to portray and describe the disperse aspects of paranoia. It tells the story of a man, obsessed and frightened by the eye of an old man which he refers to as a vulture eye. Poe has us questioning the protagonist’s sanity throughout the story.
The story begins with the paranoid man trying to convince us– but maybe more himself, that he is sane. He then goes on describing his past actions. Fearing but also obsessing about the vulture eye, he went every night, while the old man was sleeping, with a ray of light, tried to look at the eye. But, one night, the old man woke up, suspecting an intruder in his house. Not going back to sleep, the old man sadly provoked his own death as the protagonist, afraid to be seen, killed him.
After killing the old man, he hid the body under the flooring of the room, under the bed, after dismembering the body, feeling satisfied and in peace. But his peace of mind was quickly disturbed by three police officers who came to the residence, after being notified by neighbours of unusual noise. Still at ease however, with the police’s questioning, it is when he believes to be hear the old man’s heart beat through the floor planks that, no longer in control of the situation, he reveals his murder by wildly ripping the flooring and uncovering the body in front of the three men.
The story begins with the paranoid man trying to convince us– but maybe more himself, that he is sane. He then goes on describing his past actions. Fearing but also obsessing about the vulture eye, he went every night, while the old man was sleeping, with a ray of light, tried to look at the eye. But, one night, the old man woke up, suspecting an intruder in his house. Not going back to sleep, the old man sadly provoked his own death as the protagonist, afraid to be seen, killed him.
After killing the old man, he hid the body under the flooring of the room, under the bed, after dismembering the body, feeling satisfied and in peace. But his peace of mind was quickly disturbed by three police officers who came to the residence, after being notified by neighbours of unusual noise. Still at ease however, with the police’s questioning, it is when he believes to be hear the old man’s heart beat through the floor planks that, no longer in control of the situation, he reveals his murder by wildly ripping the flooring and uncovering the body in front of the three men.
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