MADNESS AND INSANITY
As with the majority of Poe’s works ‘The Tell-tale
Heart’ is told in the first person. This allows readers to
experience the immediacy of a spoken conversation when
we are addressed from the very start of the tale (second
person personal pronoun ‘you’). “…why will you say that
I am mad?”
Don’t forget that the narrator is trying to
communicate for a particular purpose: he argues for
his own sanity- he wants to convince the audience
that he is not only sane but also intelligent.
But unreliability and fallibility may cause a rift
between the narrator and his audience. Readers learn
quickly that his judgment is seriously impaired.
WHAT TELLS US THIS?
 The narrator himself
 The narrators actions
In "Tell-Tale," we have a great example of structural irony.
This means that the whole tale involves a particular, stable set
of relationships among the author, the narrator and the reader.
There is an ironic distance between the author and the
narrator that is established as soon as the reader determines that
the narrator is insane and the author doesn't want us to trust the
narrator.
At what point in the narrative did you begin to
doubt the narrator?
When did you deem him insane?
In order for the reader/audience to uncover the
fallibility or unreliability of a narrator, the author will
drop clues that are sometimes direct (self-evident lies or
wild exaggerations) and sometimes indirect (strange tone
shifts or inappropriate reactions). What are some of
those clues in "The Tell-Tale Heart"?