Question

What happened before the murder in tell tale heart

Answer 1

Answer:

Be more specific, there was a lot more going down.

Step-by-step explanation: First of all, the narrator had this obsession with the old man. He loved him like family, even if they were mostly close friends. It was the old man's eye that was bothering him. He was mentally ill as the idea is introduced to the reader as they begin the story.  With the way he was narrating things, you could tell that he was an unreliable narrator because he's nuts. He went mad almost completely and started to plot the old man's murder. The process took about 3-4 days and nights (From my perspective, I don't have the text available in front of me right now, this is from when I was in 7th grade.) On the 3rd/4th night, he makes a creaking noise. The old man is startled but goes back to sleep. (The narrator moves ever so slowly in his advances each night, and he's careful in his own perspective. Like, just imagine him just looming over the door, ready to pounce. And when he finally got his chance, he rushes at the old man with the axe, old man being scared awake, and decapitated and mutilated into small pieces. The narrator hides the body below the floorboards and the police later arrive, suspecting foul play. After they're satisfied with the search, the narrator breathes a sigh of relief, but then a mental noise starts thumping in his head, and it was the old man's heart beat. (He had heard it as he crept into his room at night during those 3-4 days and nights.) It drove him nuts no matter how much he tried to ignore it. Finally, out of insanity, he rips out the floorboards to reveal the fresh corpse to the horror of the police. The story stops there.