Luke Hughes
ENG 111-06
The narrator in A Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe knows that people thinks he’s crazy. Although this may be true, his craziness isn’t the reason why he kills the old man. He kills him for reasons that agitate the insane part of the narrator’s mind. He obsesses about the old man in a very crazy way. As well as when he defends that he’s not crazy while he is killing the old man. For various reasons is why the narrator kills but no matter what reason, the narrator is still very crazy.
The narrator’s craziness is shown throughout the entire story as he tries to prove to the reader that he isn’t insane. He does this amidst committing murder showing that his care to prove how sane he is, is greater than his care for the crimes he commits. Showing so in the story when he states, “And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense? --now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage” (Poe 1). In this remark he tries to defend that he is sane while also telling the audience about the sound of the old man’s heart he is killing. His want to prove that his not crazy is one of the few indicators of his craziness.
Another reason he is crazy is that he is obsessed with the vulture eye of the old man. Although sometimes a person’s physical features may be something you don’t want to look at, it should not be the reason for wanting to kill someone as the narrator does. “He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever”(Poe 1). If the only way to get rid of your problems is to kill them, then he must be crazy. His crazy obsession with it must be a reason...
