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The Narrator’s Psychosis in “The Tell-Tale Heart”
Edgar Allan Poe was born into a theatrical family on January 19, 1809, in Virginia. He
lost his parents before the age of three and was raised by a rich business man. Poe started his
career as a writer at the age of twenty-one. He is best known for his detective and thriller stories
which have influenced many of their readers. “The Tell-Tale Heart,” one of his best known
works, is a psychological view of a mad narrator who kills an old man and afterwards hears his
victim’s unremitting heartbeat. The actions of the narrator, combined with his insistence that he
is not mad, lead readers to determine that he must suffer from a psychological disorder. The
characteristics, actions and traits which make the narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” so insane,
however, appear to be linked to the old man’s appearance, especially his evil eye. Poe’s “The
Tell-Tale Heart” demonstrates how a destructive obsession, aroused by an irrational fear, can
