The actions portrayed by the narrator in Edgar Allan Poe's
"The Tell-Tale Heart" seem to prove two of the main themes of the story--those of guilt
and insanity. Although the narrator tries to convince the reader throughout that he is
quite sane, his actions tell a different story. From the very first lines, we know that
there is something wrong with him.
TRUE!—NERVOUS—VERY, very dreadfully nervous I
had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my
senses—not destroyed—not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard
all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I
mad?
Certainly not the words
of a sane man, the narrator's later discussion about the man he would later murder--his
love of the old man and his "vulture-eye"--further prove that his motivations are
foundless.
The theme of guilt is addressed primarily by the
resulting beating heart that the narrator hears long after the old man has been killed.
To the madman, it is an audible sound, though it cannot be heard by the policeman in the
same room. The narrator's guilt also reflects the "doppelganger" effect, in which the
old man functions as the narrator's double or foil. Assuming the old man is the
narrator's doppelganger,
"... he kills the old man because he cannot stand
himself, perhaps fearing becoming old or disfigured like
him."
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