In the story “The tell-tale heart” by Edgar Allen Poe, insanity is portrayed right in the beginning. The author allows the reader to see from the beginning to the end the insanity of the man. This story is told in first person and it becomes a problem throughout the story. The narrator becomes an unreliable narrator. The reader cannot fully trust the narrator, and believe he is telling the whole truth. Throughout the story, the man tries to tell or impose on the reader that he is sane. He tries to explain to the reader that if he were crazy would he do something that a normal person would do or say.
Throughout, the reader can see the different levels of insanity the author is trying to portray. In the beginning, the man starts to justify himself and tries to convince the reader that he is not insane. This action alerts the reader that he is crazy. The way he is speaking and shouting tells the reader that he is crazy. He states in the first paragraph that his “sense of hearing became more powerful. I could hear sounds I have never heard before. ” This would normally be odd to a reader, at first. An explanation for this would be he will do something and he is anxious or nervous.
When someone is going to do something wrong or has done something wrong, that person will get nervous, and will pay attention to things he has never paid attention to before. That person will hear every single little thing and will be suspicious of everything. This is what the author is trying to put across. The author is trying to alert the reader that nothing good will happen throughout the story. The narrator later starts talking about an old man. He explains that he did not hate the old man and the old man had never hurt him. He later then tries to find a reason on why he did what he did.
The narrator starts rambling and comes to the conclusion that it was the old man’s eye that caused him to do what he did. As the reader continues to read, he can see how unreliable the narrator is and how unpredictable he is. With these man’s actions, the reader can support his idea that the man is insane. The man starts to rush while he is speaking and somehow is still trying to justify himself of something. At this point, the reader begins to doubt the narrator if he should be trusted. The man also describes the old man’s eye as a vulture. Usually, a vulture is described as a bird of prey.
It is interesting that the man described the old man’s eye as a vulture. Somehow, it seems the man felt attacked by the old man’s eye. He then continues to justify himself by stating “So you think that I am mad? A madman cannot plan. ” This is another subtle hint to the narrator that he is crazy. He states that he is planning something but the reader does not know what. The man then states that for a whole week he used to break into the old man’s house and go into his room and watch him sleep. He also continues to say, he felt as if he had to kill the eye.
With this statement, the reader can predict that the man will eventually kill the old man. The fact that the reader discovers that the man knew the old man or that maybe they were acquaintances makes the man seem even more crazy and grotesque. The man later states that one night as he was watching the old man, the old man moved and heard something. He states “Now he knew that Death was standing there. ” The reader as well as the old man, now knows the time has come and that at any time the old man will be killed. The man later states, once he uncovered a bit f the cloth on the lantern, he was able to see the “vulture eye”.
That was all he saw. In this the reader could see the crazy obsession and paranoia the man had with the old man’s eye. The man speaks of the old man’s eye as if it were an actual weapon that will harm him, or has harmed him in the past. After the man killed the old man, the man is still asking if the the reader believes he is a madman, he states that he cut up the body and placed it under a few floorboards. The reader can see the man still not coming to his senses and not believing what he had done was wrong. At the end of the story, the reader can also see the man’s paranoia get to him.
The narrator states that three officers came to the old man’s house and they asked about a scream that was heard by the neighbors. Although the man tries to cover up the murder, the crazy man states that he had made the officers believe the old man was away. One can try to believe this, but the fact that the narrator becomes unreliable the reader is taking a gamble as to whether he wants to believe the narrator. The author portrays insanity to a whole different level. Poe starts the story with the man appearing razy and ends with the man going crazy.
Poe begins with the man’s actions and way of speaking not coming across as too crazy or insane. He allows the reader to create a evaluation of the man and have a well formed perception, without judgement. Although the author begins with the man trying to justify himself, the reader is not able to make a rational judgement without reading a bit more of the story. Throughout the story Poe allows the reader to get to know the man and allows the reader to decide whether or not he is a “madman”. The reader can assume the man is insane, although the author oes not state the man is a madman.
Because of this assumption, the narrator becomes unreliable. In most cases, first person narrator is not a reliable source. Because the narrator seems to be a madman, the reader has no choice but to doubt him. The narrator throughout the whole story is defending himself, without the reader knowing what he is defending himself from. In conclusion, the way the author portrays the man’s insanity and the way he allows the man to appear, he takes it to another level. Because of the story being told in first person, the reader cannot really know what actually appened at the end.
The first thought that the reader might think is that the man is crazy and insane. For that reason, the man killed the old man because of his eye. The level of insanity of the man is portrayed, by the fact that the man states that he is sane because he planned everything and he was nice to the old man before he killed him. He tries to input in the reason he is sane is because he does things a normal person would do. The narrator does not realize that the reason he hears things is because he is crazy. He believes his hearing levels have increased.