Introduction
A mental struggle exists within the speaker in Edgar Allan Poe’s narrative The Tell-Tale Heart. Poe clarifies to readers that the speaker is insane through clear indications and assertions. His fascination with the old man’s eye, which he believes to be an evil eye, demonstrates his craziness. He quickly loses control due to his passion and eventually turns violent. The narrator’s confession to killing his roommate is the central theme of this tale. He eventually confesses to killing the elderly man to police officers, who are on the scene, because the guilt he feels over the death is too much for him to bear.
People frequently believe that only deranged people may feel guilt. That is not the case, though. Every person can experience guilt. Poe shows that even the mad can experience remorse through language and environment. Therefore, the narrator of this story is unreliable and incapable of being believed because he exhibits the characteristics of an insane person.
Why the Narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart Is Not Reliable
The story’s narrator is unreliable because, to produce dramatic irony, he provides an account that conflicts with the indicated author’s perspective on the events. The old man and the narrator live in a run-down, dark house. He claims that the shutters were tightly constructed out of concern for thieves. Most of the story takes place at night, as the narrator clearly states that he worked on it for seven long nights at midnight.
This short story’s mental and emotional environments are equally significant since they help to understand the narrator’s mentality, even though the physical scene is essential. This story’s mental setting takes place within the killer’s head. The narrator’s confession is revealed to readers through his thoughts. He openly acknowledges to the audience how anxious he is. Nevertheless, he queries the readers why they believe he is insane. He fluctuates between being worried and essentially trying to prove his sanity, which shows his incapacity to think correctly and conduct sanely.
Additionally, the narrator also acknowledges that the illness had made his senses more acute. He is suggesting that insanity is the illness here. The old man’s eye had a pale blue color with a film covering it, and he maintains that this is what motivated his actions. A sane individual, however, would not typically desire to kill an elderly guy who is virtually blind solely because of his cataract symptoms. Hence, the narrator is demonstrated to be confused, mad, and unreliable in mental and physical settings.
Poe’s use of language in The Tell-Tale Heart narrative demonstrates his unreliability as a narrator. When the narrator is with the police officers, he has the impression that they have heard, suspected, known, and are mocking his fear. Readers get the impression that the narrator is hallucinating thanks to the author’s usage of language in this passage. He thought the police officers were making certain acts and gestures directed directly at him. He was sure that they were telling the truth when they claimed to be oblivious to the crime, despite the fact that the police did not even consider him to be a suspect.
Poe uses repetition to demonstrate the narrator’s mad state further. Poe implies that he is highly uncomfortable and fidgety, that he is attempting to organize his thoughts, and that his mind is everywhere from the beginning of the narrative when he says that he is very nervous to the end of the story when he says that it is the beat of his terrible heart.
Moreover, the language and the story’s context demonstrate how even the most insane people can feel shame. These components also aid in showing how the story’s narrator is unreliable, making it possible to read the text in various ways. The reader immediately suspects the narrator of being insane since he justifies every action he takes as being clever, giving the appearance that he is crazy from the story’s beginning.
For instance, he claims that the readers believe he is insane and that insane people are ignorant. However, they ought to have observed how shrewdly he acted with prudence, foresight, and deception. Normal people would not murder someone because they had an eye condition and would not be as paranoid as the narrator in this narrative.
He claims that after killing the elderly guy, he dismembered him and hid the fragments under the floorboards. He claims to be wise rather than insane. This raises questions about the integrity of what he is saying. However, when considering the interval between when the narrator killed the elderly guy and when the police showed up at the residence, this is not plausible. There was not enough time to do everything and clean up the mess.
Conclusion
Therefore, Poe establishes the narrator’s insanity, demonstrating the narrator’s unreliability through language and context. The audience might have understood the tale differently and held different views on the murder and the murderer if the story had been given from a different perspective. Hence, the narrator of this account is untrustworthy.