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The TellTale Heart The TellTale Heart is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe. An unnamed narrator opens the story by explaining his sanity and senses, particularly hearing. He believes people will think he is crazy when they hear the story about his murder of an old man whose pale blue eye, with a film over it gives him the creeps. “Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold and so, by degree—very gradually” Poe 3. Then again, he believes he still could not be crazy considering how he carried the act out. The narrator explains how he has no clue where the idea came from, but once it entered his head, he could not get rid of it. He explains how the old man he killed did not wrong him in any way in fact he loved him. In preparation for killing the old man, the narrator was nicer to him in the week before than he had ever been. This sparks a question Why would he want to murder a man who did not do anything to him This gives us an unsettling and yet confused feeling of why the narrator wants to kill the innocent old man. The rising action in this story is when the narrator plots to kill the old man. He would stealthily put his head through the door each night and slightly crack the hood of a lantern so that a thin ray of light shone on the mans Evil Eye. For a week, the old man was spied on without the old man noticing. This scenes setting is described as a quiet, pitchblack room. The narrator is extremely cautious he explains how cautious he is while trying to get into the old mans room. “I moved slowly—very, very slowly so that I might not disturb the old man’s sleep” Poe 4 This shows how determined the narrator was to kill the old man. He flashed a lather in the old mans eye, but the “evil eye” was shut close since the man was sleeping. That did not give the narrator the courage to kill the old man. On the eighth night though when the narrator was getting into the old man’s house, he was about to crack the shade of the lantern, the sound of his fumbling with it had caused the old man to wake up. The old man sprang up and shouted, “Who there.” The old man could not see anything since his room was thickened with darkness. The narrator stood still over the next hour as the old man lay awake. During this time, the narrator imagined that the old man must have been trying to comfort himself. “Mabey it a rat crossing the floor” or “it is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp.” Poe 5. This can give us a little idea of the old man’s personality it shows how the old man fears death. The narrator explains how he pitted him, but his heart chucked “I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart” Poe 5 This raises the question of why he would want to kill the old man if he had some pity for him