The story the tell tale heart by Edgar Allan Poe is one of his shorter stories but interesting one at that. The story is mysterious and equivocal at times. The most interesting thing in the story is the narrator. The narrator is trying to prove his sanity throughout the story. If the narrator is trying to prove a Saturday but only she confesses heinous crime he is all but insane.

The narrator opens up the story by admitting he is "very very dreadfully nervous" type of person. He then states he is not mad, to reveal that he is a madman and capable of a heinous crime. The narrator speaks of his sensitivities that allow him to hear "all things in the heaven and the earth," also in hell. The sensitivities are part of the reason he became obsessed with the old man's eyes which in return murders the old man for his Vulture eye.

The narrator starts his story off with the fact that he "loved the old man," adding "He never wronged me." This is when he leads into his obsession and the vulture eye. He goes into great detail about the eye "A pale blue eye, with a film over it." Only A madman would obsess that much over an eye to have no motivation to kill the old man but the obsession of the vulture eye. In this paragraph the narrator contradicts himself with his mental ability to love and hate at the same time.

He then wants to prove to us his sanity by how "wisely" he would proceed with caution foresight and dissimulation he executes his deeds. He then goes into how every night at midnight he latches open the old man door and "oh, so gently" doing so he would poke his head and slowly through the door. It would sometimes take him an hour to do this process. He states "what a madman have been so wise at this?" For seven long nights the narrator does this deed of opening the door cautiously to finally get to wear his head and lantern would have a "single ray" fall