The narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart" plans the murder of
the old man very carefully, but as is often the case, even the best laid plans can go
awry. During the week before the planned murder, the narrator treated the old man better
than ever in order to put him at ease. Each evening at midnight, the narrator carefully
and quietly opened the old man's bedroom door, and very slowly put his head inside--so
slowly that
It
took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as
he lay upon his bed.
The man
was careful that no light shone inside, so the bedroom was completely dark. Just as
stealthily, the man allowed a single ray of light to shine from the lantern onto the old
man's "evil eye." Each of the first seven nights, the eye was closed, and the narrator
refused to commit his evil deed without the eye being opened. But on the eighth night,
the man stirred as the narrator slowly worked the knob of the door. When his head was
finally inside, the patient narrator's "thumb slipped upon the tin fastening" of the
lantern, and the old man awoke. For an hour, the narrator waited silently before
allowing a thin ray of light to settle upon the evil eye. This time it was open, and the
narrator made his move: Dragging the old man from the bed to the floor, the narrator
suffocated him before dismembering the corpse.
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