“The Tell-Tale Heart”, by Edgar Allan Poe, tells the story of how a man narrates the

events of a crime he committed to a police officer. His crime involved killing and dismembering
an old man, who he took care of. The story is told completely from the first-person point of view.
By having the insane man narrate the story, we as the readers understand that he is mentally ill.
This inspires a feeling of empathy towards the man. While this doesn’t make his actions
excusable, we understand that the narrator is not evil, but how could different points of view
change the way we feel towards this character? The story has no real antagonist since the
conflict is mainly internal. However, if the story were to be told from the point of view of the old
man, then the story would change from an insight into the mind of a madman to a story about
betrayal, and the insane man would change from a tragic character to an evil one. This would
also alter the way we feel towards the protagonist. We would no longer feel empathetic, we
would feel disgusted and scared of him. Exploring different points of view is a fun experiment as
it lets us appreciate the message and symbolism even more, after understanding how it aids in
telling the story.

a tragic tale in which nobody is guilty. A story about a tragedy that could’ve been
prevented had the protagonist gotten the help he needed.

Another interesting perspective for the events of this story to be told in would be the first-
person point of view of the old man. We might begin with how the old man and the insane man
met. Are they friends, family, or is the insane man simply his caretaker? The story would show
how long they have known each other and how the insane man took care of the old man. Maybe
we could even get a few glimpses into the insanity of his caretaker. These hints towards the
caretaker’s unstable mind will not be picked up by the old man. He might just think this man was
just a little odd, but the readers know that something is wrong. As the old man’s death gets
closer, the audience gets more uncomfortable around the caretaker, as he starts to be much
more caring and kinder than ever towards the old man. Then, the final scene. The old man
wakes up in the middle of the night and sees a dark figure standing in his door. After standing
still for hours, the figure charges and starts to strangle him. In his last moments, the old man
recognizes the face and dies wondering how this man he trusted could do such a thing. Our
empathy in this story would be directed towards the old man, and the insane man gets none of
it. Instead, he gets our anger and contempt.

The last perspective I would like to analyze is the perspective of a bystander. Let’s say
that one of the police officers that interrogated the insane man told the story to their partner.
Then the partner tells this story to a friend. Eventually every retelling of these events would be
filled with empathy towards the old man and hatred towards the killer. They don’t have the ability
to peek inside his mind. In fact, if these events were real, we wouldn’t empathize with the killer.
The only way we could feel any type of empathy, is if we were to investigate further and realize
that the man was very ill. Anybody that did not do this extra research, however, would see him
as an evil being. To feel sorry for someone like him would be outrageous. How ironic that, in
trying to rid the world of an evil entity, the insane man ended up being evil incarnate in everyone
else’s eyes.