Nancy1

Nancy Arzola

E.Lara

ENGL-1302-MAEP5

29 March 2023

Reading response #1 – “The Tell-Tale Heart”

The innocence of a man

In the early 1843 Edgar Allan Poe published “The tell-tale heart” to entertain the readers

with an out of mind story. The author wants for the reader to use extreme critical thinking of how

a man is trying to excuse himself from guiltiness. This is a story in a first point of view

perspective, the narrator first point is that he is no crazy and he wants to prove the readers he is

not. When reading this story, the reader can imagine already narrator is crazy, and the story is

going to be about him being crazy. Although the narrator does not reveal his name or gender, the

reader can conclude it is a man, because back in the days the story was published women were

not allowed to be alone with men. The narrator starts explaining that he has nothing against the

old man but that his vulture eye disturbs him and molests him so much. The narrator ends up

killing the old man and delates himself while being paranoid. The story starts up with the

narrator considering himself not crazy. The narrator starts explaining how everything happened

so the readers can judge if he is guilty or innocent.

In the story “The tell-tale heart” the narrator starts pointing out little by little innocence.

The narrator considers himself an innocent person of not being crazy. For fact he states “How,

then, I am mad? Hearken! And observe how healthily- how calmly I can tell you the whole

story” (Poe Lines 4-5). Letting the reader know that he is in a good condition to tell a story of

how he killed a man. The reader knows at that point that the narrator has mental issues. In the
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first paragraph the narrator starts his introduction of how he is not crazy declaring himself as

healthily. When the story starts to go further on the narrator stars explaining that he has no

problems with the old man, but it is his eye that gives him anxiety. The reader can infer the

narrator is not healthily, and that something is actually wrong with the person. A person who

clearly is not innocent of being a Physico.

Furthermore, as the story goes on, the narrator starts giving details slowly of how every

night he would go into the old man's room to watch him sleep. The narrator had the idea of

killing him, but he was waiting for the vulture eye to open, so he starts going every night until he

got the chance. The old man hears a noise and wakes up fearfully. The narrator states “I knew

what the old man felt, and pitched, although I chuckled at heart. I knew he had been lying awake

ever since the first slight noise, when he had turned in the bed.” (Poe lines 55-56). The narrator

knew the old man was scared and stood their looking like a sociopath. It is clearly relevant that

the narrator is guilty of being a psychopath. The narrator enjoys the fear of the old man which

clearly makes him guilty.

In conclusion, the story of Edgar Allan Poe “The tell-tale heart” is about the innocence of

the narrator not being crazy. Although gives evidence of how the narrator being actually is a

Physico who at the moment enjoyed the fear of the old man. Through the story the narrator wants

to make himself look like a normal person when in reality he committed a crime. He narrates the

crime very calmly which makes him look like a guilty person. The reader is a can infer the

narrator is a person who is unscrupulous and who really has no mercy and is completely out of

his mind. Absolutely a death does not define whether a person is guilty, but someone who

describes it and is considers himself as not crazy, is totally crazy. Obviously, the narrator does

not prove himself innocent when telling his story, he reveals that he has mental problems.
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