Book Review Sample on The Tale-Tell Heart

Introduction

Sometimes one may claim to be sane, but their actions prove the opposite. In the short story "The Tale-Tell Heart," Edgar Allan Poe uses a narrator who claims to be rational, but his action makes the reader debate whether the man was insane or not. Although the narrator tries to support his sanity claim, his story proves that he has a mental problem. If the narrator was not mad by the time when he committed the murder, possibly his mind was preoccupied with some things that made him partially mad. Another possible explanation that can justify the claim that the man was sane is that he could have suffered from paranoia, which made him act the way he did.

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Start of the Story

At the start of the story, the narrator engages in a conversation with a person who the author did not identify in any way. In the conversation, the narrator wonders why the other person called him insane. The character is regretful of what he did, for he asks whether a mad man can remember the events in the day of doom (Fradelos, 2019). It is the regret that the narrator feels, which makes him keep the memories in his mind. When the narrator says that the man he killed had done nothing wrong to him, it is a clear indication that he regrets his past deeds.

The narrator is the guilt of the crime that he committed some past time. The guilty in the person is evident in how he explains the events that took place at the night that he killed the man they used to live with. The character starts his narration with the word 'true' which shows that the person feels and feels the guilt of the action that he did. When the author says that a voice kept on speaking inside him towards the end of his narration, it explains that the man feels remorseful of the murder. It is guilt in the man that makes him confess, killing the man to the police officers finally.

Narrator

Edgar Allan Poe portrays the narrator as a persistent person. The man is so determined that he took a lot of time to revenge against the victim. The narrator is also determined to prove that he is not mad and gives a clear explanation of why his action was not a result of insanity (Wall, 2013). The determination of the narrator is evident in the way he organizes the process of killing the man. According to the description that the character gives, every night, he sneaked into the man's house and put a closed but lit lamp in the house for a whole week.

The repeated intrusion to the man's room was aimed at studying the sleeping patterns of the man. According to the narration, the man took a long time in the house before taking the action they wanted to do. The way the narrator tells the story of what happens also shows how organized he is as he starts the story to claim that he is not mad (Wall, 2013). By the end of the invention, a listener must have understood the things that happened. Determination also makes the narrator ensure he hides evidence of the murder by disposing of the corpse carefully under the floor after confirming well that the man was dead.

The author also portrays the narrator as a vengeful character as he takes revenge for even minor things. The man is very keen to avenge the man even though the victim had nothing wrong (Wall, 2013). In the narration, the man says that he had to take out the 'vulture' of the man for the eye for good.

Victim of the Narrator’s Action

The victim of the narrator's action is a man who is sociable but solitary. The man lives well with his neighbors and friends as the narrator says that the man had never done anything wrong to him. The narrator does not talk about the victim's family in the entire narration, although he talks about the neighbors who called the police (Fradelos, 2019). The vulture-eyed man is also a cautious character. The man hears some strange voice when the narrator opens the door on an eventful night. The vulture-eyed man remains awake for hours as the narrator waits for him to sleep to kill him.

In the Tale-Tell Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, the policemen are determined characters. It is the officers' determination, which makes them search the murdered man's house and those of the neighbors (Fradelos, 2019). Determination is also evident it the police officer's unwillingness to leave the narrator's house even after finding no evidence. The narrator says that he waited for the policemen to go, but they overstayed, which makes his tension increase, which finally makes him admit to the crime.

The neighbors of the vulture-eyed man are responsible since they go to call the police when they sense that something out of the ordinary has happened to the man. It is out of the neighbors' responsibility that the police come and search the area and finally discover that it was the narrator who committed the murder. Although the author does not tell the action of justice that the police took against the narrator, readers of the story guess that the narrator was jailed. As the narrator describes the events, he could be in jail, and the audience could be the fellow prisoners. The reader can also guess the audience to be a judge.

The author wrote “Tale-Tell Heart” in a way that proves that the main character, the narrator in the story, is neither sane nor mad. The narrator's behavior consists of some elements that show that he was in a sound mind (Fradelos, 2019). The fact that the man felt guilt after committing the murder makes a reader conclude that the narrator was sane. After killing his friend, the man felt his inner voice speaking so frequently that he could not help but surrender himself to the police officers.

Conclusion

On the other side, the narrator murders with a reason that one could only understand if the narrator was insane. The events that preceded the killing of the vulture eyed man shows that the man is suffering from a particular mental problem. The reason for killing the man is enough to tell a reader that the narrator was not in his sound mind.

Works cited

Fradelos, Evangelos. "Art and psychosis: Elements of psychopathology in the work of Edgar Allan Poe. The case of tale tell heart." MHGC Proceedings 2019 (2019): 40-40.
https://mhgc21.org/dataset-static/74/129/Fradelos.pdf

Wall, Brian. "Narrative purpose and legal logic in “The Tell-Tale Heart”." The Edgar Allan Poe Review 14.2 (2013): 129-143. doi:10.5325/edgallpoerev.14.2.0129.