“The Tell-Tale Heart” begins with the famous line “True!—nervous—very, very nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?” The narrator insists that his disease has sharpened, not dulled, his senses. He tells the tale of how an old man who lives in his house has never wronged him. For an unknown reason, the old man’s cloudy, pale blue eye has incited madness in the narrator. Whenever the old man looks at him, his blood turns cold. Thus, he is determined to ki ll him to get rid of this curse.
Again, the narrator argues that he is not mad. He claims the fact that he has proceeded cautiously indicates that he is sane. For a whole week, he has snuck into the man’s room every night, but the victim has been sound asleep with his eyes closed each time. The narrator cannot bring himself to ki ll the man without seeing his “Evil Eye.” On the eighth night, however, the man springs up and cries “Who’s there?” In the darkroom, the narrator waits silently for an hour. The man does not go back to sleep; instead, he gives out a slight groan, realizing that “De ath” is approaching. Eventually, the narrator shines his lamp on the old man’s eye. The narrator immediately becomes furious at the “dam ned spot,” but he soon hears the beating of a heart so loud that he fears the neighbours will hear it. With a yell, he leaps into the room and kills the old man. Despite the murder, he continues to hear the man’s relentless heartbeat.
He dismembers the cor pse and hides the body parts beneath the floorboards. There is a knock on the front door; the police have come to investigate a shriek the neighbours have reported. The narrator invites them to search the premises. He blames his scream on a bad dream and explains that the old man is not home. The officers are satisfied but refuse to leave. Soon the sound of the heartbeat resumes, growing more and more distinct. The narrator grows pale and raises his voice to muffle the sound. At last, unable to stand it any longer, the narrator screams: “I admit the deed!—tear up the planks!—here, here!—it is the beating of his hide ous heart!”
