Tell-Tale Heart Poe\'s the Tell-Tale

Tell-Tale Heart

Poe's the Tell-Tale Heart is a story based around the theme of conscience. The story is told in first person by a narrator who has murdered an old man. The narrator's underlying sanity is reflected in the many ways in which his conscience helps to guide his words and actions.

At the outset of the story, the narrator emphasizes that he is not insane. While his words carry the aura of someone protesting too much, they also illustrate his own conscience. He knows that he is insane and admits such when he writes "The disease has sharpened my senses." However, he excuses the disease, claiming that it has not impaired him but rather enhanced him. The narrator's conscience drives this claim, as the narrator understands that his act was wrong but cannot readily admit it as such. If he admitted that he was mad, then he would need to admit that his act was wrong -- a deranged murder that he committed. As a rational man, however, he feels that he can justify his act. If the act can be rationally justified, then the narrator can have a clear conscience about the crime.

The narrator's desire to be viewed as a rational individual is demonstrated repeatedly throughout the text. The devices the narrator creates to justify his acts, including the evil eye, his superior senses and the beating heart, all reflect his underlying conscience. Underneath the dementia, he still views himself as a rational actor. These devices are all constructs of the narrator that help to create a scenario where his actions are justifiable on a rational basis. His conscience can accept a rational decision, but not an irrational one. This hints that the narrator is struggling with both the self-realization of his illness and also its consequences.

The theme of conscience is most strongly illustrated by the device of the beating heart. The heart represents the narrator's underlying humanity. The heart speaks to the narrator, both while the old man is alive and after he has been killed. The old man's heart is the conscience of the narrator trying to reach him. It first appears when he shines the lantern's light on the old man's eye. It is the lantern shining on the eye that spurs him to kill, in contrast to the previous nights where the eye had remained closed. The beating heart is the narrator's response to the desire to kill -- a reminder that the old man is a human being.

The narrator misinterprets the beating heart and kills the old man, but the heart does not stop beating. The old man's humanity has not been extinguished with his life. In his subconscious, the narrator realizes this, which is why the heart torments him. Cognizant of the old man's humanity, the narrator thus retains a fragment of his own. The heart's beating ultimately compels his confession. In this way, his conscience speaks to him. The sane part of the narrator feels guilt over the act, and the confession is the narrator's conscience accepting culpability for the murder.