In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” a narrator lives under the watchful gaze of the eye of an old man with whom he lives: English Essay, SIT

In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” a narrator lives under the watchful gaze of the eye of an old man with whom he lives. This eye haunts the narrator and he murders the old man. Officers are dispatched to the scene after a scream coming from the property is reported. After temporarily convincing them that no crime was committed, the narrator breaks down and confesses.

Paranoia always seems to be the downfall of those with a guilty conscience. Recently, in an out-of-character fit of anger, I punched a hole in the basement door of my apartment complex which leads to the building parking lot. The old building in which I live has no security cameras, no guards.

Even though no one could know it was I who left the crater, the scene replays in my head every day as I leave my apartment and head for my vehicle. Just glancing at it fills me with an overwhelming sense of guilt. I fear punishment. I am paranoid as to who knows my secret. But isn’t this paranoia deserved? Isn’t it a side effect of my actions? If I had not damaged the door, I would not feel the burden of paranoia.

Therefore, can paranoia exist if we have nothing to feel guilty about in the first place? In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Poe uses symbolism by way of the old man’s eye, pale color, the bed and bedroom, and the number three to spotlight the theme of guilty paranoia. He uses these symbols to suggest we cannot experience paranoia unless we have something to hide.

The narrator is immediately consumed by the old man’s eye, a symbol that indicates the narrator feels seen and exposed. The symbolic eye hints that the narrator already has a secret, something that has caused a guilty conscience. The eye is a gateway into the soul of the narrator. He describes the chilling feeling of being watched: “I think it was his eye! Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold”.

To suggest that his blood chills when gazed upon suggest he feels seen for who he truly is and fears having to confront his true self. The narrator convinces himself he is wrongfully judged, suggesting it was “a pale blue eye, with a film over it.” If the eye is the window to the soul, then the narrator feels its perception is skewed.

He feels the old man’s eye has a blurred perception of whatever the narrator has done. The film is a misunderstanding. His descriptions of the eye rapidly harshen: “a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye.” (43) With the narrator’s paranoia developing around the symbol that casts judgment, he paints the picture that he is a victim. The eye now belongs to a bird of prey, circling him, waiting for him to die.

It feeds on his guilt, the cause of which we are still uninformed. The eye has progressed from being described as having distorted vision to being vulturous. Paranoia grows to where “it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye.” The narrator now goes as far as to name the eye, calling it evil personified. Evil preys upon his unknown secret and it must be destroyed if the narrator is to be relieved of guilt. It is his increasing paranoia that brings him to this conclusion.

Paranoia drives the narrator to terminate the gaze of the eye in the bedroom, a symbol that further suggests he enters the story with a guilty conscience. A bedroom is a place of secrecy. It’s a place where we can let our guard down and feel safe from the harsh judgment of the world. There, we are truly vulnerable: “’It is nothing but the wind in the chimney—it is only a mouse crossing the floor, it is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp.’ The old man is murdered in his most vulnerable state.

The narrator is either unaware of the significance of killing the old man in a place where a person can be most honest with himself, or has done so out of spite. To end the eye’s gaze in a bedroom symbolizes the narrator is not only trying to destroy a perception of him but is also trying to put to rest the mysterious intimate secret that causes him guilt. The narrator “pulled the heavy bed over him”, crushing him, suffocating him with a symbol of intimacy, secrecy, and sometimes regret.

Ridding himself of the eye in such a manner is deeply satisfying to the narrator, who “then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done.” (44) It is a combination of the release from the gaze and the thought that he has relieved himself of his hidden guilty secret that causes the narrator’s giddiness. He feels the initial burden for which he was judged is gone. Unbeknownst to the narrator, he has only temporarily succeeded in ridding himself of guilt. His paranoia has only momentarily ceased. It returns and has grown all the more, this time with a fresh crime tacked on, causing the paranoia to worsen.

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