Subjective Narrator: The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar A.
Poe
by Lillian Bonar
Essay: Subjective Narrator: The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar A. Poe
Pages: 11
Rating: 3 stars
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The narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart uses a simple language to tell a simple story, which convinces the reader that
he is indeed mad. In an ideal situation, one would expect the narrator to protest about his innocence to detach his
conscience from the heinous crime. However, the narrator tries to seek empathy from the reader through his
protestations that diverts the reader’s attention from the crime to start wondering about his insanity. As the
monologue progress, the reader is confused whether the narrator is indeed putting up a show or he is indeed mad
because he too does not seem to be totally convinced that he indeed insane. He asks, “Why will you say that I am
mad?”… “Observe how healthily-how calmly I can tell you the whole story” (Poe par.1). Fundamentally, the
confused state of the narrators mind could be Poe’s strategy to keep the reader induced by the narrator’s
confession. The twisted plot brings complexity to such a short story making The Tell-Tale Heart to be both
mysterious and psychologically intriguing. The fact that he had not motive to kill the old man furthers confirms of
his insanity. In the process of defending his sanity plea, the narrator has to confess about committing the crime.
The confession in itself is self destructive if indeed he was a criminal who wanted to distance himself from the
murder. Overall, Poe ‘s use of a subjective narrator, mysterious characters, and intricate plot heightens the tension
of the tale, which makes the story a masterpiece of human psychological state that evokes empathy for the mad
narrator.
As the story progresses the sanity of the narrator becomes questionable. However, one cannot fail to recognize
the characteristic unreliability of a first person narrator. The narrato...