The Tell Tale heart essay mine 
The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
The first-person narrative, The Tell-Tale Heart, tells the tale of an unknown murderer, who very carefully plans out the perfect murder. He succeeds with his plan and hides the body, by cutting it into to pieces and hiding them under the floorboard.
The reader is not given any exterior characteristics of the narrator. However there is a vivid description of his mental state. It can quickly be concluded that he is nervous, which is stated in the very first sentence of the text. (p.1, line 1). Throughout the text, it becomes clear that the narrator is paranoid and possibly mentally ill. The fact that he hears a dead heart beating, tell us that he is unable to know the difference between, what is real and what isn’t.
One could also ask the question: If he just wants to escape the vulture eye, why doesn’t he just leave the old man? Why does he have to kill him? It could have been very difficult; maybe even impossible to leave him and murdering him was the only way to be free. Even under those circumstances, the narrator still comes across frightening. He explains he enjoys spying on the old man the nights prior to the murder: "I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts." (p. 1 line 31) If he just wants the old man dead, then why does he have to go through such an elaborate process to do it?
The narrator describes hearing a ringing in his ears (p. 3 line 103), perhaps this could be tinnitus, which can cause hallucinations.
The title refers to the tale the heart has to tell in the story. This is shown in the end, when the narrator hears the heart and tells the police of his doing. This could be interpreted to be either the old man's ghost, a hallucination on the part of the narrator or, the more likely, him hearing the sound of his own heart beating, and every time he gets nervous, his own heartbeat
The first-person narrative, The Tell-Tale Heart, tells the tale of an unknown murderer, who very carefully plans out the perfect murder. He succeeds with his plan and hides the body, by cutting it into to pieces and hiding them under the floorboard.
The reader is not given any exterior characteristics of the narrator. However there is a vivid description of his mental state. It can quickly be concluded that he is nervous, which is stated in the very first sentence of the text. (p.1, line 1). Throughout the text, it becomes clear that the narrator is paranoid and possibly mentally ill. The fact that he hears a dead heart beating, tell us that he is unable to know the difference between, what is real and what isn’t.
One could also ask the question: If he just wants to escape the vulture eye, why doesn’t he just leave the old man? Why does he have to kill him? It could have been very difficult; maybe even impossible to leave him and murdering him was the only way to be free. Even under those circumstances, the narrator still comes across frightening. He explains he enjoys spying on the old man the nights prior to the murder: "I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts." (p. 1 line 31) If he just wants the old man dead, then why does he have to go through such an elaborate process to do it?
The narrator describes hearing a ringing in his ears (p. 3 line 103), perhaps this could be tinnitus, which can cause hallucinations.
The title refers to the tale the heart has to tell in the story. This is shown in the end, when the narrator hears the heart and tells the police of his doing. This could be interpreted to be either the old man's ghost, a hallucination on the part of the narrator or, the more likely, him hearing the sound of his own heart beating, and every time he gets nervous, his own heartbeat