"The Tell-Tale Heart", by Edgar Allan Poe

This short story makes for an interesting psychoanalysis. From the get-go, the narrator, whom we know nothing about, is conniving us adamantly that they are perfectly sane and rational. Very quickly however, we see a rapid progression of events that leads to a murder an an older man, for which there appears to be no motive other than due to a dislike of his “evil” eye, that “resembled that of a vulture—a pale blue eye, with a film over it.” In this whole sequence of events, we don’t have any data points on the narrator’s identity or backstory, the one and only clue given is a single word that hits at the gender of the narrator - “You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing.” The narrator tells us what he wants us to know. This brings up the question, is this narrative calculated? Is there more to the narrator than pure psychopathy? What is real in all of this and what isn’t? Should we believe everything this person is telling us?

One constant in this re-telling of events is that the narrator is very strongly protesting his sanity - not his innocence. When the police are questioning him and he is at first happy to talk with them and ease suspicion, however eventually he starts showing major signs of instability - “I gasped for breath—and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly—more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations, but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone?” - finally in the end confessing to the crime he just committed. According to medical journals and studies, many murderers feel some sense or remorse after having killed someone (whether they feel that as a true genuine form of regret or just guilt for being caught and now having to face the consequences is another matter) - a psychopath, on the other hand, will not think in this manner, as they are incapable of processing and dealing with things, and essentially lack emotions that would normally be present in situations such as the one described in this short story. 

Though desperate to convince us and law enforcement otherwise, the narrator is not a reliable source of information. He attempts to use logos as the ends to justify the means and persuade the reader that he had solid reasoning behind his actions, even going as far as saying, “Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire.” Clearly this plot to kill the elderly man was premeditated and calculated, yet it still comes across at times as something that was in the heat of the moment - if not for the eye which is highlighted as the sole motivation that sparked this decision, would the narrator still have killed him? Given the story teller’s fascination with him, it is safe to assume that he would have found a reason to do what he did either way. 

Numerous times the writer tells us how he planned this and the steps he took to not only commit the murder, but to then conceal the evidence. “ I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye—not even his—could have detected any thing wrong.” After killing the man, we begin to see a further increase of mania as we are told that the heartbeat of the dead man is so loud, the narrator is afraid that it will awaken all of the neighbors. This had been thought out long prior to the actual event that is retold here, and a week was spent trying to in some ways gain the trust of the old man to have easier access to him - yet the rapid decline in the storyteller’s mentality shows that this is not quite a cold blooded murder, but of something else that we do not know of. 

In conclusion, the real motivator is not the old man, or even the eye - but rather the narrator’s own mental illness. Even after death, the old man is victim blamed and made out to having deserved it due to his “Evil Eye.” Simultaneously, the narrator states that the old man did not do anything wrong, and “I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart.” It isn’t until the end where the reciter of this story seems to at the very least start to understand the consequences of his actions and gives in to his own inner monologue, showing the police where the body was cut up and hidden away in the floorboards where he had put his chair to sit during the interrogation. All of the logic and ego used in this narrative tell us that this goes much deeper than simply being triggered by the old man’s eye, but rather something else from the storyteller’s past is making him react and act out the way he does, and it is synonymous with some unresolved traumas or unresolved issues that were never dealt with and resulted in the psychological / mental illness that is presented in this series of events.