A critical response essay

The Telltale Heart written by Edgar Allan Poe is a story plagued by the mayhem and murder. The short story is written in first person, voiced by a name without a name claiming his sanity. The narrator spends most of his time attempting to convince himself that he is of sound mind even though he is driven to madness of the pale blue eye of an old man. The eye itself is source of the madness that leads the narrator to the monstrosity of murder. The Telltale Heart is strongly coupled with madness and monstrosity as demonstrated through the voice of the protagonist narrator and the criminal act of murder.

The narrator speaks to the idea that it is not the man himself that he has any quarrel with, but it is only the pale blue eye that is the source of the issue. Each night it would take him an hour to get his entire head through the opening of the door and the narrator exclaims, “Ha! –would a madman have been so wise as this?” speaking of how cautiously he would enter the room as to not wake the sleeping old man. A man only of sane mind would be so thoughtful as to be so quiet. The narrator surely thinks, how a madman could be so cautious and patient to enter a room without disturbing the sleeping old man. Even though he has already decided to commit a monstrous act of murder he is unable to complete this for the first seven nights because the pale eye that antagonizes the madness is closed. Upon the eight night as the narrator shines the light from the lantern to the eye and finds that it is open. Previously the narrator professes “it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye.” Now that he has entered the room and found the eye staring at him he is able to finish the monstrous act and kill the old man.

The narrator then takes it upon himself to prove further his sanity by committing a further monstrosity of dismembering the body of the old man and placing him under the floor boards. A man without sound mind would not be able to so carefully hide the evidence of the murder as the narrator speaks to himself. There is too much knowledge and skill required to pull off such a feat; to leave no evidence that could be found. There comes a knock at the door, with confidence the narrator opens the door knowing what a fine job he had done dismembering the body and hiding it under the floor boards where not even he could see they had been moved. He welcomes the three police officers on a tour through the home and offers them to rest on chairs; placing his chair above the body lay underneath. While the narrator is able to convince the police that there is nothing out of place the madness the narrator has imposed on himself of his monstrous act over takes him and he once again begins hearing things; this time the beat of the heart of the old man from beneath the floor. This beating of the heart drives him to confide his monstrous act of murder to the police. This madness within him, his over sensory to noises and the pale blue eye could be the cause of the insanity that he denies; in the same the insanity may rightfully be the cause to his act of monstrosity.