An Analysis Of The Narrator In Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart

Although readers who have read Edgar Allen Poe's, "The Tell-Tale Heart," have stated the narrator is insane, a closer look shows that he is actually sane by means of nervousness, patience, and murder. Edgar Allen Poe's, "The Tell Tale Heart," is a short story about a killer's morality consuming the narrator and a battle between the narrator being insane, or if he is suffering from over-acuteness of the senses. Poe suggests the narrator is sane by the narrator's claim of sanity, "True! - nervous-very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am." The narrator's actions bring out the dramatic irony in this story, showing readers the narrator is attentive of his own feelings. The narrator is sane according to the definition of insanity-