The Tell-Tale Heart
A short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1843, in which an unnamed narrator insists on sanity while recounting a murder and confession.
Unreliable narrator: A narrator whose account cannot be accepted as a fully accurate or trustworthy representation of events. The narrator’s claims of sanity conflict with the reasoning and perceptions described.
Edgar Allan Poe: An American writer and editor known for poetry, short stories, and influential works of Gothic and detective fiction. Poe wrote the story and shaped its compressed, psychologically intense style.
The old man's eye: The pale, film-covered eye that the narrator says motivated the murder in Poe’s story. The narrator’s fixation on this feature supplies his stated motive.
The Black Cat: An 1843 short story by Edgar Allan Poe in which a murderer’s violence and guilt lead to his exposure. Like this story, it uses a first-person criminal confession, but centers on cruelty and a concealed corpse.
Guilt: A painful sense of responsibility for a real or imagined wrongdoing. The narrator’s growing distress makes guilt seem more powerful than the physical evidence.
Dramatic monologue: A literary form in which a speaker addresses an implied listener, revealing character through a sustained speech. The story unfolds as one pressured address to an unstated listener.
The Pioneer: An American literary magazine published in Boston in 1843 and edited by James Russell Lowell. It printed the story in its January 1843 issue.
The murder scene: The episode in which the narrator kills the old man and conceals his body beneath the floorboards. Its methodical details sit uneasily beside the narrator’s insistence on rational control.
The Cask of Amontillado: An 1846 short story by Edgar Allan Poe about a narrator who entombs a rival during carnival season. Its narrator calmly recounts deliberate revenge, unlike the increasingly agitated speaker here.
Madness: A broad, historically variable term for severe disturbances of thought, emotion, or behavior. The narrator’s insistence that he is not mad invites scrutiny of his own judgment.