The Heart Keeps Beating

Edgar Allen Poe is known for writing stories full of darkness and death. This particular short story, The Tell-Tale Heart, involves the murder of an old man by a psychotic narrator who claims to be “normal.” The narrator’s behavior, however, tells us a completely different story.  Along with the underlying themes of this story, Poe also illustrates how an ill human mind operates. Poe first reveals the narrator’s abnormalities when he mentions, “I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth…How, then, am I mad” (226)?  After analyzing the abnormal behavior of the narrator, it is evident that the narrator is in fact mad.

One of the most important themes of the story is guilt. The narrator kills an old man just because he had an eye that resembled a “vulture” (226). Not to mention, the narrator even “loved the old man” (226). Throughout the whole story, the narrator never reveals a logical reason for killing him, which means that he is guilty for committing murder. Another significant theme that Poe addresses pertains to the narrator’s insanity.  In the opening paragraphs, Poe makes it clear that the narrator is not an ordinary person because he can hear things from heaven and hell. Moments after the old man is dead, the narrator feels a sense of relief but that soon changes when he starts to hear the beating of the old man's heart. At the end of the story, the police has no idea about the murder until the narrator reveals what he has done. The narrator mentions, “I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer” (229)! Ultimately, the narrator’s “tell-tale heart” is responsible for his downfall.

An ordinary person would probably do anything to cover up a crime, but in this situation, the exact opposite occurred. The human brain holds the potential to do many powerful things. One of those examples involves the capacity of the human mind to deceive itself and lead it to its own destruction.