Discuss the narrator’s warped sense of reality in "The Tell-Tale Heart."

In the first two paragraphs of "The Tell-Tale Heart," the
dangerously deranged narrator draws the reader into the macabre, but somewhat
fascinating madness he possesses:

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True!  Nervous--very nervous, 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.

It is through this
completely unreliable narrator that the reader views the terrifying tale of murder, and
for this reason, the story is all the more chilling. 

With
sadistic pleasure,the narrator recalls how he has planned the murder. For seven days he
feels triumphant and powerful as he opens the door upon the old man who is unsuspecting
of his "secret deeds."  On the eighth day, when the old man groans, the narrator
describes his soul as "overcharged with awe."  So, he stealthily opens the door and this
time his lantern falls upon "the vulture eye," which is what the narrator claims has
been torturing him.  At the sight of the eye that offends him, the narrator becomes
furious; he then hears what he mistakes as the old man's heart when it is probably his
own.  As the heartbeat grows louder, the narrator becomes paranoiac, fearing that the
neighbors will hear. So, he pounces upon the room, drags the old man to the floor, and
pulls the heavy bed over him.

Again, his feelings of
triumph surge, and he smiles at his deed.  With sang froid, then,
the narrator describes his "perfect coolness" as he takes precautions for the hiding of
the body.  After he has the body dismembered and hidden under the floorboards, the
police appear.  With a sick bravado, the narrator escorts them into the very room where
he has hidden the body.  Then, he again imagines the beating of the heart of the old
man.

Oh God!
would could I do?  I foamed--I raved--I swore!...but the noise arose over all and
continually increased....They suspected!  They knew! They were
making a mockery of my
horror!

Again, the mad
narrator projects his own feelings onto others as he accuses the police of dissembling.
In his frenzy, he tells them to tear up the planks, revealing the beating heart that is
surely his own.