Human nature is a delicate balance between good and evil. Most of the time there is an unknown balance and the evil is subdued; however, when there is a shift, for whatever reason, the dark or evil side of human nature can surface. In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart", readers come across a man whose "blood runs cold" because of an old man's evil eye. It is this irrational fear which evokes the narrator's dark side and eventually leads to murder. The author utilizes the "Tell-Tale Heart" to convey the nature of life and how one can stray into insanity. The author combines this theme of human nature with subtle irony to create a horror story which is clearly an interpretive type of writing.

"The Tell-Tale Heart" first starts off with the narrator denying his insanity: "You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded ..". The narrator is trying a great deal to prove his sanity to the readers; however, the iron

What may push one certain individual over the edge could be ridiculous to another. In this story, it is the evil eye which turns the narrator's "blood run cold". The narrator repeatedly insists that he is not mad; however the reader soon realizes that the fear of this evil eye has consumed the narrator, who has now become a victim to the madness which he had hoped to escape. All these points of irony clearly convey that Poe had written this story to broaden our awareness of life and human nature which shows that this short story is an interpretive piece of writing.

Another ironic example found in this story is that this "evil eye", an organ of sight, is the reason for the murder; however, it is the sound of the beating heart which condemns the narrator.

The narrator has no motive for this murder except for the fact of the old man's evil eye, "a pale blue eye with a film over it .." The old man has done nothing to the narrator as the narrator states, "I loved the old man. He never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no

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Approximate Word count = 711
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)