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Asia Tran

Professor Johnson

ENG-111-5631N

24 August 2022

I am Not Crazy

Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, The Tell-Tale Heart, is a first-person narrative

showcasing the narrator’s descent into madness. Poe uses vague details and a precise vocabulary

to allow the narrator to try to convince the reader they are completely sane while recalling the

murder they committed. He writes in a way to showcase the narrator’s obsession with the old

man’s eye, heartbeat, and their sanity. The content in the beginning is meant to be rational,

causing tension between the style and content. Repetition is used throughout the story to build

momentum and tension.

Poe introduces us to a conversation between the narrator and the reader. The narrator

exclaims in the opening statement, “It’s true!” (Poe 64), not as an admission of guilt, but trying

to build a sense of reliability. He creates a narrator that is defensive and nervous. The narrator

insists that they “have full control of [their] mind (64)” and their illness has only heightened their

senses. Poe writes this short story in an erratic way, showing us the narrator’s urgency to

convince the reader that they are completely sane, while recalling the murder they have

committed. He uses this momentum to keep the readers intrigued and push the story forward.

The narrator wants to give us insight as to why they chose to murder the old man, trying

to give a rational explanation for irrational actions. Poe wrote, “...the idea first entered my head.

There was no reason for what I did” (64), suggesting the narrator did not form the plan

themselves, but the plan was planted there. The narrator compares the old man’s eye to a vulture,
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a bird that watches and waits for an animal to die to prey on it. The vulture symbolizes a coming

death, and the narrator is fearful of death. The narrator explains that they have nothing against

the old man, even telling the reader that he loves the old man. They try to justify the active

decision to murder the old man by creating the eye into a separate entity. The narrator states, “A

madman cannot plan” (65), contradicting themselves, the narrator emphasizes that there was no

ill will throughout the story.

Poe portrays the narrator’s obsession with time and murder when describing their routine,

stalking the man “for seven nights… every night at midnight” (65). The narrator is fearful of the

vulture eye but acts just as a vulture stalking their prey. They continue to think about the murder

but acts as if everything is normal, speaking to the old man in a “warm, friendly voice” (65)

every morning. The narrator continues to emphasize to the reader that they do not want to kill the

old man but end his “Evil Eye” (65). A clock motif appears throughout the story, representing

time running out. It is constantly there, looming upon our narrator’s fear of their own time

running out. Poe reminds us of his obsession with time again, writing “He could not guess that

every night, just at twelve, I looked in at him as he slept” (65).

The eighth night is when the murder occurs. The narrator is building confidence by

waking the old man, causing him to let out a cry, as they peeked into his room. Poe wants this to

feel relatable to the readers, the old man being afraid in the dark, woken by a sudden noise. He

wrote, “he knew that Death was standing there”, personifying Death as a character that stalks and

kills. The narrator proceeds with his routine, peeking the light to try and see the vulture eye. Poe

uses repetition throughout this section to create intensity and build more tension, playing on our

narrator’s building confidence. As a person gets more anxious, their adrenaline runs high. The

narrator connects the sound of a clock to a heartbeat, representing time passing or running out.
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As they stand in the doorway still, stalking the old man, they insist they can hear the old man’s

heart, but it can only be their own. The narrator insists “as the sound grew louder my anger

became greater and more painful” (66), their anxiety and adrenaline giving them the confidence

to smother the old man, only stopping when the heartbeat stops, representing the time pausing.

Poe writes “he was dead! Dead as a stone” (66) to assure the reader that the old man is dead. The

narrator addresses the looming question of their sanity again saying, “so I am mad, you say?”

(66). The narrator wants the reader to overlook the horror of their actions and focus on how

calculated they are by going into detail of how careful they are hiding the evidence of the

murder. Poe focuses on the exact details of erasing the event rather than how the narrator did it to

allow the narrator to show evidence of their sanity.

When the old man died, the narrator’s sense of time stopped. The time had jumped to 4

a.m. when the police had come to the door after neighbors reported the old man’s cry. The

narrator insists, “the cry…was my own, in a dream” (67), making the old man’s cry into a dream,

a figment of their own imagination. They continue to show them around the entire house,

bringing them into the old man’s bedroom, where the murder had just occurred and calmly

chatted with them. They are reminded of their humanity as their “head hurt” (67) and their

confidence gained from killing the old man is wavering. The narrator is becoming more anxious,

hearing “sounds of a clock” (67) and remembering their time is running out. Poe uses repetition

here to build up the tension and portray the narrator’s growing nervousness. The narrator’s fear

eating them alive causes them to admit to the murder and where the old man was placed in hopes

to stopping the sounds in his head.

Our narrator did not admit the murder out of guilt, it was the fear that they are human and

cannot escape death. The narrator asks, “why does his heart not stop beating?! Why does it not
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stop?!” (67), portraying his hopes that admission would pause time, preventing it from running

out. In the end, Poe’s style and content mirror each other, as the narrator descends into madness

as they continuously try to prove that they are not insane.

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Edgar Allen Poe: Storyteller, 2013 ed., Office of

English Language Programs, Washington, D.C., 2013, pp. 64–67.