Tell Tale Heart Nervousness

Madness is a State of Mind The mind can be a fertile ground on which the seeds of thoughts are cultivated; the seeds become plants, and the plants, become trees that bear fruits that can be detrimental to one’s mental health. The first-person point of view leads the reader into the narrator’s seemingly deranged mind; whose behavior and thoughts would eventually culminate into actions that are evident of a person suffering from mental illness, which can be attributed to paranoia. A person who experiences irrational fear and delusion has the potential to inflict hurt to himself as well as others. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” is told from the perspective of the narrator who gives a personal account of a situation fueled by anxiety,
Nervousness is a defining characteristic of such an individual. In the case of the narrator, he claimed that he was nervous prior to, and after he carried out his evil deed. This is made obvious in his opening statement: “True! - Nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am…” (Poe, 41). Nervousness is again exhibited when the murderer enters the bedchamber of the old man on the eight consecutive night. Upon stealthily entering the old man’s bedchamber, he happens to startle the old man who awakes in terror. He deliberately shines the light on the “eye” and nervousness seeps in again because now he believes he can hear the crescendo of the old man’s heartbeat, when in fact he was hearing his own. “I have told you that I am nervous: so I am.” As the sound of the heartbeat permeates the bedchamber so audibly to the narrator, his will to get rid of the eye once and for all climaxed. “And now a new anxiety seized me – the sound will be heard by a neighbor.” This exemplifies that anxiety does not prevent one from following through with the extremes of carrying out a divisive scheme of atrocity; in most cases, it usually causes it to heighten. The narrator had strategically planned and eventually followed through with his evil deed despite his
The narrator speaks of the fear he has of the old man’s eye. He refers to it as the “Evil Eye” because “it resembles that of a vulture – a pale blue eye with a film over it.” The fear the narrator feels when the “eye” looks on him, made his blood run cold.” This comparison could be credited to the characteristics of a vulture being a bird of prey with a very keen eyesight. He uses repetition to emphasize the claim that whenever he sees the eye, his blood would get colder and colder. This is affirmed by the following statement, “Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees – very gradually (Poe, 41).” Despite his love for the old man who have never wronged him, the eye has to go, if it means taking the old man’s