From the onset of this story the narrator tries to convince us, as the reader, that he is not mad, but rather has acquired due to an illness ''sharpened the senses.''(par. 1). The first instance in which we are let in on how acute his senses are is the case of the old man's ''vulture eye.''(par. 3). The old man's eye evokes an irrational fear out of the narrator from the onset. ''When it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees-I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.'' (par. 2). It was only this brief encoun

If the eye is what pushed over the line of sanity it would be the old man's constantly beating heart that would lead to his demise. The heart is first heard as only a faint noise in the narrator's head but it later beings to increase in intensity and begins to envelope his mind. It serves to increase his fury ''as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage,''(par. 10) and he finally commits the most horrific act by smothering him with his own bed until the heart ceases to beat. He then uses detail of how he disposes of the body in which he describes how cunning he is to try and make us believe that he is not in fact mad. But by this point it is obvious to us that he is indeed mad. With the arrival of the police officers at the end of the short story we are clued into a very important detail and that is the fact that the noise of the beating heart was that of his own, not the old man.

ter with the gazing eye of the old man that pushed him over the line. Shortly after deciding to kill the old man,

Some common words found in the essay are:
Tell-Tale Heart'', , Allan Poe's, tell-tale heart'', edgar allan poe's, Edgar Allan, eye pushed line, allan poe's, eye pushed, edgar allan, pushed line, beating heart, acute senses,
Approximate Word count = 690
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)