The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe

"Will you say that I am mad?"

What is madness? In this beloved story, Poe invites readers to question their own ideas of when exactly we cross the line. Rae Wilson shares her observations on Poe's words and invites you to question the unimaginable.

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Transcript

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Welcome to Echoes in the Dark, a podcast dedicated to the oral tradition of storytelling. If you're looking to enjoy more classic literature, struggle to find the time to read, hate reading, or just love listening to stories, then this podcast is for you. At the end of each story, I'll share my analysis on the story's deeper meanings. Today's Twisted Tale is The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, written in 1843, because this story invites us as the reader to do some serious thinking about human behavior. It is my intent to read this with less dramatic flair, so as not to sway your opinion of the story in one direction or the other. However, keep listening to the end of this tale so that we can discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly of what is happening here. And so, The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe. It's true, yes, I have been ill, very ill, but why do you say that I have lost control of my mind? Why do you say that I am mad? Can you not see that I have full control of my mind? Is it not clear that I am not mad? Indeed, the illness only made my mind, my feelings, my senses stronger, more powerful. My sense of hearing especially became more powerful. I could hit sounds I had never heard before. I heard sounds from heaven, and I heard sounds from hell. Listen, listen, and I will tell you how it happened. You will see, you will hear how healthy my mind is. It is impossible to say how the idea first entered my head. There was no reason for what I did. I did not hate the old man. I loved him. He had never hurt me. I did not want his money. I think it was his eye. His eye was like the eye of a vulture, the eye of one of those terrible birds that watch and wait while an animal dies and then fall upon the dead body and pull it to pieces to eat it. When the old man looked at me with his vulture eye, a cold feeling went up and down my back. Even my blood became cold. And so I finally decided I had to kill the old man and close that eye forever. So you think that I am mad? A madman cannot plan. But you should see me. During all of that week, I was as friendly to the old man as I could be and warm and loving. Every night about 12 o'clock, I slowly opened his door. And when the door was open wide enough, I put my hand in and then my head. In my hand, I held a light covered with a cloth so that no light showed. And I stood there quietly. Then carefully, I lifted the cloth just a little so that a single thin small light fell across that eye. For seven nights, I did this. Seven long nights. Every night at midnight. Always, the eye was closed. So it was impossible for me to do the work. For it was not the old man I felt I had to kill. It was the eye. His evil eye. And every morning, I went to his room. And with a warm, friendly voice, I asked him how he had slept. He could not guess that every night, just at 12, I looked in at him as he slept. The eighth night, I was more than usually careful as I opened the door. The hands of a clock moved more quickly than did my hand. Never before had I felt so strongly my own power. I was now sure of success. The old man was lying there, not dreaming that I was at his door. Suddenly, he moved in his bed. You may think I became afraid, but no. The darkness in his room was thick and black. I knew he could not see the opening of the door. I continued to push the door slowly, softly. I put in my head. I put in my hand with that cover light. Suddenly, the old man sat straight up in bed and cried, who's there? I stood quite still. For a whole hour, I did not move. Nor did I hear him again lie down in his bed. He just sat there, listening. Then, I heard a sound, a low cry of fear, which escaped from the old man. Now, I knew that he was sitting up in his bed, filled with fear. I knew that he knew that I was there. He did not see me there. He could not hear me there. He felt me there. Now, he knew that death was here, standing by. Little by little, I lifted the cloth until a small, small light escaped from under it, to fall upon, to fall upon that vulture eye. It was open, wide, wide open, and my anger increased as it looked straight at me. I could not see the old man's face. Only that eye, that hard blue eye, and the blue in my blood became like ice. Have I not told you that my hearing had become unusually strong? Now, I could hear a quick, low, soft sound, like the sound of a clock heard through a wall. It was the beating of the old man's heart. I tried to stand quiet, but the sound grew louder. The old man's fear must have been great, indeed. And, as the sound grew louder, my anger became greater and more painful. But, it was more than anger. In the quiet night, in the dark, so loudly that I was sure someone must hear, the time had come. I rushed into the room, crying, die, die. The old man gave a loud cry of fear as I fell upon him and held the bed covers tightly over his head. Still, his heart was beating, but I smiled as I felt that success was near. For many minutes, that heart continued to beat, but at last, that beating stopped. The old man was dead. I took away the bed covers and held my ear over his heart. There was no sound. Yes, he was dead. Dead as a stone. His eye would trouble me no more. So, I'm mad, you say? You should have seen how careful I was to put the body where no one could find it. First, I cut off the head. Then, the arms and the legs. I was careful not to let a single drop of blood fall on the floor. I pulled up three of the boards that form the floor and put the pieces of the body there. Then, I put the boards down again, carefully, so carefully that no human eye could see that they had been moved. As I finished this work, I heard that someone was at the door. It was now four o'clock in the morning, but still dark. I had no fear, however, as I went down to open the door. Three men were at the door, three officers of the police. One of the neighbors had heard the old man's cry and had called the police. These three had come to ask questions and to search the house. I asked the policemen to come in. The cry, I said, was my own, but a dream. The old man, I said, was the way he had gone to visit a friend in the country. I took them through the whole house, telling them to search it all, to search well. I led them, finally, into the old man's bedroom. As if playing a game with them, I asked them to sit down and talk for a while. My easy, quiet manner made the policemen believe my story. So, they sat, talking with me in a friendly way, but although I answered them in the same way, I soon wished that they would go. My head hurt, and there was a strange sound in my ears. I talked more and faster. The sound became clearer, and still they sat and talked. Suddenly, I knew that the sound was not in my ears. It was not just inside my head. At that moment, I must have become quite white. I talked faster and louder, and the sound, too, became louder. It was a quick, low, soft sound, like the sound of a clock heard through a wall. A sound I knew well. Louder it became, and louder. Why did the men not go? Louder and louder. I stood up and quickly walked around the room. I pushed my chair across the floor to make more noise to cover the terrible sound. I talked even louder, and still the men sat and talked and smiled. Was it possible they could not hear? They heard. I was certain of it. They knew. Now, it was they who were playing a game with me. I was suffering more than I could bear from their smiles and from that sound. Louder, louder, louder. Suddenly, I could bear it no longer. I pointed at the boards and cried, Yes! Yes, I killed him! Pull up the boards and you shall see I killed him. But why does his heart not stop beating? Why does it not stop? Why, oh why, indeed, does Poe give us this wonderful tale that leaves us going, He did what? Now, I love using this story to introduce students to Edgar Allan Poe. When I was in school, I believe my first introduction was the poem, The Raven, and it was dark and creepy. I know I loved it. What was that about? But this story, this story leaves students instantly attached, wanting to know, He did what? And after reading this story, I always have a little discussion with my students. So, what do you think? Is the narrator insane? And generally, the answer is always, Yes, of course he is. He killed a man. How could you even ask that? And yet, I'm gonna invite you to dig a little deeper because it's not as black and white as one might think. I believe Poe has done a wonderful job of making the reader question what is right, what is wrong, what is normal, what is sanity, and what is insanity. Okay, so to argue that the narrator, who has stated up front that he may have been ill, but he is not mad. Well, let's go ahead and take him at his word. Let's say that he's not mad. One of the reasons the narrator says he is not mad, he offers us proof as his ability to carefully plan out his actions. And in the United States, when you look at a court of law, it is often decided that someone who can willingly and knowingly plan to commit a violent act is not criminally insane. If you know it is wrong, and you do it anyway, then this is not a temporary lapse in judgment. This is someone who's just doing wrong. Think of it this way. Maybe a parent will ask a child to do their homework before playing video games, and that child plays video games. Parents says, hey, did you do your homework? The child says, yes, of course I did. Absolutely. Knowing full well that they did not. Now the child has lied, and yet, does that make the child a bad person, even though they knowingly lied to their parent? Think of the employee who really just wants to get out of work a little early, so they can make it to their train, or go to an interview at another company. And so they have a colleague clock out for them, or maybe they're not in a system where they have to clock out, but they leave early. And when asked, hey, I was looking for you the other day. I couldn't find you. I want to go over some material with you. The person will rarely say, oh, well, you couldn't find me because I left early. They'll probably just say, oh, I must have just missed you. I was in a meeting with so-and -so, and I left at this later time. So people tell lies all the time without the intention of being malicious and hurting someone else. Now you might be saying, there's a big difference between lying about leaving work earlier, lying about doing your homework, and killing someone. And yet, my point is, both actions take planning, intention, regardless of whether or not you agree with the person's purpose. A lie is a lie, and a murder is a murder. We could also look at the fact that the narrator planned these actions over a period of time. So for a full week, night after night, he went into this room with the intention of extinguishing the eye, just waiting for his opportunity. He didn't go in every night just to make sure the old man was sleeping okay. He didn't go in every night with hesitation, maybe I will, maybe I won't. The moment that I opened, he acted. Another area that I like to look at is his behavior. Once the old man is dead, and he has invited the policeman in, our narrator does not have a moment of remorse or go back to reasonable thinking. He plays a little game with the police. Well, come on in, search the place. He is actually enjoying proving to the cops that he is smart. He's almost playing a game of cat and mouse, him being the cat, batting his prey around, with them not knowing that beneath the floorboards, there's a dead man. Yes, the narrator could have gotten a game with this murder. If he had just let the police come in, shown around, and said goodbye, then that would have been it. The police would have left, he could have left town, and it would be quite some time before anyone realized that the old man was dead, let alone being able to find the old man's body. He would have been long gone, far out of town, but instead, he gives himself up. And why? That sound, that horrible sound that's been eating at him. Was it the sound of a clock? The sound of a dead man's heart? Or the sound of his own guilt? Mm-hmm. You know, when this story was written, there was no social media or TV. People turned to books for entertainment, and it was not uncommon for someone to be in a job they did not love. After all, the story was written during the Industrial Revolution, and you're in a job you don't love. Maybe you find yourself working for someone who was very wealthy, and you are less than wealthy, but you do your job. And sometimes you wish, man, I wish things were different. I wish I had more money, or I wish I didn't have to work for this person. And the narrator does say, I didn't want his wealth. I even loved him. Yet, it is not uncommon for even the child to think to themselves, oh, I hate that parent. Or those oh-so-unfortunate words. I wish they were dead, right? This sudden burst of just wanting things to be different, not really wanting the other person actually dead, but just wanting things to be different. And so Poe gives us the story where we have an opportunity to see, well, what if things were different? What if that thing that bothered you, the thing that annoyed you greatly, was no longer in your life by your own doing? How would you feel? Would you feel relieved that it's no longer there, annoying you, restricting you? Or would you feel guilty for removing this, knowing that you're removing whatever it is that was bothering you, may have negatively impacted someone else. Okay, so we won't say that a parent has died, or that the mean boss has died, but what if the mean boss is suddenly fired, or stricken ill, or maybe the mean boss loses that company, and you found yourself going, wow, I hated working there, and now it's gone. And is my life any better, knowing that that mean boss is now without a job, or suffering? Is my life better, or do I feel some guilt on my part in the whole process? My wishing that the company would fail, that they would no longer be in their position of power. Okay, so we have looked at the world from the narrator's view, as if, hey, you're not mad, you have simply done what millions of people throughout the world have wanted to do, and you're just not a nice person. But now let's look at things as if we are not taking the narrator by his word, and instead we focus on his initial comments of being ill, very ill. And Poe gives us several indications that maybe the narrator is insane. After all, he mentions hearing sounds from heaven and hell. Is this literal? Is he really hearing the devil talk to him, or was that just his subconscious talking to him? Lots of times in TV shows, they depict the little angel on the shoulder, the little devil on the shoulder, the part of your mind that says, do good, and the other part of the mind that says, go ahead, eat the chocolate cookie. After all, it's there. What's the harm? But the angel on your shoulder says, don't eat the chocolate cookie, you don't know whose it is. And besides, you're trying to be healthy, you don't need that chocolate cookie. The internal struggle between good and bad is always there. So did our narrator really hear screams from hell and heavenly voices? Or did he just suffer the same struggle that we always so many people throughout the world do? And what about his fixation on the eye? I mean, after all, our narrator devoted a whole week, seven days going into this room, carefully shielding the light, carefully squeezing his body into the room, and waiting and watching. Now, though a court of law would say, if you can plan it out, and this was done with intention, and therefore you were not insane, you were just a bad person. However, maybe, maybe he is insane. Because one thing that someone who does not have control of their mind would do is to become incredibly fixated on something so small, like an eye. This this small thing that just bothered him to his core, bothered him so much that the only way to solve the problem was for him to take action and get rid of it. Yes. So maybe, maybe he is insane. After all, he does hear the sound of a clock. Or is it a beating heart? Well, if the man is dead, how could he still be hearing that beating heart? Is it his guilt? Or is it a figment of his imagination? I think you can make a strong argument for either case. But it's important to not discount the fact that the narrator does not feel he is insane, and goes to great lengths to prove that he knew what he was doing. So one thing that Poe encourages the reader to think about is, if you have bad thoughts, does that make you a bad person? If you act upon your bad thoughts, does this make you a bad person? After all, everyone has moments where they may not think the nicest of nice things about others. And so are they mad? Or are they just human? I hope you enjoyed this story. And do come back for another Gothic Tale.