Tell Tale Heart Symbolism

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell Tale Heart” designly uses the indications or symbols of the heartbeat, the man’s insanity, and the old man’s eye to display that a madman’s insanity illustrates the motif of culpability. The madman has a disease that not only brighten his senses but makes him insane. He has convinced himself that the old man’s “vulture” eye is evil. The madman conceives a plan to kill the old man to relieve himself of the old man’s eye. He watched the old man sleep for a whole week but on the eighth night he was almost caught. He killed the old man and hid his body under the floorboards. The police showed up to just talk to the madman, with no suspicion. As they are there the madman starts to hear a faint thumping; the sound