Poe's "A Tell-Tale Heart"

Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story that concisely details the deterioration of a man's mental stability. The narrator begins the tale by stating that regardless of what his actions and his thoughts might appear to tell, he is in fact not crazy. His cold meticulous planning is similar behavior to that of a psychopath, but he makes sure to reiterate to the audience that his murder of the old man makes sense. Not much information is given regarding the old man, we just know that he appears to be a housemate/acquaintance of the narrator and that he sleeps alone. The old man himself is not responsible for aggravating the mad man, instead, it is simply the color and gaze of his eyes that haunt the mad man endlessly.

The narrator hunts his pray for a week. He acts normal during the day, but when the night time casts its shade over the town, the narrator enters the old man's home to observe him while he sleeps. He seems to feed off having the upper hand when he stares at the old man sleep, being at his most vulnerable. However, its this upperhand that stops him from harming the old man. It is not until the 8th night, when the narrator does the same routine, that the old man wakes up in complete terror. He feels the presence of someone else. He now shares the paranoia that the narrator has held since the beginning of the story. Seeing this old man helpless in fear is what finally entices the narrator to attack and get rid of the eye. The conclusion has the narrator succumbing to his own arrogance and it shows how he overestimated his ability to blatantly lie and be comfortable with doing such a horrible deed. Paranoia eats at him until he cracks and tells the police what he did. Poe tries to personify the notions of fear and paranoia with this short story and it proves to be disturbing.