What was tell tale heart about

Even we do not know about his gender. Most of the critics believe that the narrator is a male, as was the norm at that time, however, others believe that it may be a female character who narrates the story. The narrator acts illogically throughout the story and follows his instincts rather than his reason. On the basis of these qualities, some critics believe that the narrator might be a female because irrationality and emotionality were associated with women at that time.

Poe focuses more on the events in the story rather than the individuals, so he leaves it open for his readers to decide whether the narrator is a male or a female. Critics believe that the narrator suffers from paranoia and his paranoiac personality leads him to commit the murder. A paranoiac person feels fear of others all the time. Same is the case with the narrator in the story.

He feels afraid of the old man though he has never harmed him. In order to counter his fear, he kills the old man without any apparent reason. On the other hand, the narrator may want individual freedom and that is why he kills the old man.

He may be struggling to gain freedom which may seem impossible if the old man lives so he decides to kill him. Ironically, he becomes more confined after murdering the old man.

Consequently, we can say that there is no apparent reason for murdering the old man. These are mere speculations. There are diverse opinions about the relationship between the narrator and the old man. They both live in the same house. The narrator loves the old man until he murders him. The old man never harms the narrator. Some critics opine that there is a master-slave relationship between the two. The old man serves as the master and the narrator is a slave to him.

Other critics believe that there is a father-son relationship between the two. However, according to my understanding of the story, this assumption is a little weak. Why, on earth, will a son kill his own father so brutally if he loves him and his father never harms him. It may happen, in some cases, but is not true for this story. A son will never go to such extremes to gain freedom from his father, according to my opinion.

Finally, Poe leaves this relationship open for the readers to decide. Furthermore, the narrator throughout the story tries to prove his sanity but his actions and his words are enough for the readers to conclude that he suffers from physical as well as mental problems.

He leaves no stone unturned to prove that he is not a mad person but his actions prove otherwise. He gives logical reasons for his irrational act but fails. His motiveless murder, his sadistic attitude during the murder, and his calm demeanor after the murder prove that he suffers from some psychological problem. He plans the murder methodically and never gives the old man a clue about his plan.

However, he kills the old man without any evident reason which shows his psychological instability. His paranoiac mentality urges him to kill the old man before he could harm him. The motiveless murder also throws light on his sadistic personality. He enjoys inflicting pain upon others. He does not shudder or feel any fear of doing this hideous act.

He murders the old man without any rationale. We can associate these ideas with the narrator as he kills the old man without any motive. All elements of Gothic fiction are present in the story.

The hidden corpse, the supernatural setting of the story, the horrible murder, and the mentally unstable protagonist, all these elements make it a classic example of Gothic fiction.

The narrator, who is the protagonist of the story, suffers from some psychological problem and commits a murder without any obvious reason. He hears sounds which no one else hears, leading to the fact that he suffers from some mental problem. Mystery and fear is another element of Gothic fiction which is also present in the story. The narrator, himself, is an enigmatic personality who no one knows fully. He has no name and no specific gender. He is paranoiac and his fear of being harmed leads him to murder the innocent old man.

The setting of the story also conforms to the idea of Gothic fiction. The story is set in a bizarre and strange house with no detailed description. The narrator commits the murder in a dark room. The underground hiding of the corpse adds to the canny setting of the story.

The supernatural elements also add to the Gothic form in the story. The pounding heart of the dead old man comes to haunt the narrator. It haunts him until he confesses his crime to the policemen. As Poe lived in times when Romanticism was at its peak so the influence of Romanticism is pretty much there in his fiction. He wrote about the strange and bizarre things and neglected literature for a didactic approach. He focused on emotions rather than rationale and wrote literature which had a direct effect on feelings and emotions.

The narrator in the story acts according to his intuitions and does not care about the consequences. The Romantic influence on his writings is greater in this regard. The story is, mainly, set in a horrible and bizarre room full of darkness. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed listening; — just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall.

Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief — oh, no! I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise, when he had turned in the bed.

His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. All in vain; because Death, in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel — although he neither saw nor heard — to feel the presence of my head within the room.

When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little — a very, very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it — you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily — until, at length a single dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice and fell upon the vulture eye. It was open — wide, wide open — and I grew furious as I gazed upon it.

And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over acuteness of the senses? I knew that sound well, too. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. But even yet I refrained and kept still.

I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eye. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! I have told you that I am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror.

Yet, for some minutes longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me — the sound would be heard by a neighbor!

With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. After the lantern, the narrator puts his head through the doorway, extremely slowly, and then opens the lantern so a tiny beam of light shines on the old man's eye. Each night the old man doesn't open his eye, so the narrator feels that he can't kill him. Remember: he doesn't hate the man, he hates the man's eye. On the eighth night, the old man hears the narrator at the door and wakes up.

The narrator hangs out there in the dark for a long time, motionless and then, with a scream, plunges into the totally dark room, opening the lantern, and shining light on the old man's eye. The narrator drags the old man, who has only screamed once, off the bed, and then pulls the bed on top of the man.

When the narrator hears the man's heart stop beating, he removes the bed and checks to make sure the old man is really dead. More proof of the this guy's sanity? For seven days though they were unable to kill the man because he had his eyes closed — it was the vulture eye that was compelling the unnamed narrator to kill the old man, after all.

It is on the eight night that the old man wakes up when the narrator enters the room. The old man knows that someone is there, and he even cries out with fear. The narrator can finally see the awful vulture eye, and it is this that finally enables him to murder the man.

The sound grew louder and louder as he stood there looking at the man, and then louder still as he murdered him, until it was gone.