Young 2
Guilt Trip
When reading Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” our narrator is motived to execute an elderly man with an unusual eye. The old man’s physical disabilities “would fancy him mad” (Poe 37), thus leading our narrator to become a cold-blooded killer. However, it wasn’t the death of the old man that would be our narrators undoing, it was his anxiety and the sound of a subtle heartbeat that would unfold everything.
In the story the narrator’s anxiety would manifests when the old man eye would first fall upon him, “Turning his blood cold” (Poe 39). With each passing night his anxiety would begin to grow as the eye would be shut when the old man was sound asleep. As the nights pasted our narrator feel prey to the “vulture eye” (Poe 37). Internally he was running from his own shadow. Thus, he grew hatred towards the old man spurring the killing on the eighth night when the old man awoke to a noise in the dark.
At the peak of our narrator’s anxiety attack a subtle heartbeat emerged driving our narrator to rid of the eye forever. Rational thoughts left our narrators mind as he suffocated the old man; moving from his gentle caretaker to a cold-blooded killer. No more will the “eye vex him” (Poe 39). He took cautious steps to clean up his mess and dispose of the old man. He was at peace with himself finally when his anxiety subsided internally.
While he was basking in his glorious deed, of getting rid of eye that fancied him mad, there was a knock at the door. Upon opening the door, he encountered police, who merely stopped to inquire about a shriek. Instead of turning the officers away, he arrogantly invited them into the home. Almost as if he was daring the officers to discover his deed. He suggested for them to search the house, as if he was challenging them...
