Above all else, the murderous narrator of Edgar Allan
Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" seems to have a single-minded attitude toward his task.
Totally self-absorbed in the plot to kill the old man, the narrator can think of nothing
else. The fact that the narrator has obviously descended into madness, despite his
attempts to convince the reader otherwise, is a characteristic of many killers, who no
longer perceive the differences between right and wrong. The narrator's admission that
he "loved the old man" is another example of his mental unbalance. Like many
murderers--sane or insane--a guilty conscience eventually comes into play; and after the
narrator has committed the deed, his guilt, displayed by his hearing the old man's
beating heart, turns the tables on him. Another example of the homicidal mind is the
"doppelganger" effect. A doppelganger is a character who serves as another character's
double; in this case, the narrator's evil twin is the old man, who he
kills
"because
he cannot stand himself, perhaps fearing becoming old or disfigured like
him."
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