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The Tell-Tale Heart is a story that indicates that one man’s fear and guilt can drive him insane. This is a story about a caretaker who has had enough of an old man’s eye. His diseased mind thinks that the old man’s eye, which he likens to that of a “vulture eye; it was pale blue with a thick film over it (666),” with this description, we can determine that the old man had a medical issue which caused him to have cataracts in his eye. The importance of this eye is quite chilling, in the wild vultures are scavengers who eat dead things, this fun fact connects the two words that the author uses “vulture eye” These words, one can assume, are used as a metaphor for the fact that it symbolizes the possibility of the old man being like a predator to the caretaker.
According to the story, the caretaker can not gather a reason or motive for wanting to stalk and murder such a kind old man, and this image of him being kind might not be the case. According to Robert Kachur in his article “Buiried in the Bedroom: bearing witness to incest in Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’” he believes that this is a story that explores the possibility of incest just like that of other gothic narratives before it. One story he had in mind was “The Fall of the House of Usher,” which a lot of people have recognized the idea of brother-sister incest, thus the reason for his idea that “The Tell-Tale Heart” has an underlying meaning about male-on-male incest, is is it is most importantly father-son incest. Kachur believes that this could be a story in which the traumatic act of father-son incest is re-enacted without it being revealed to anyone. This idea thus might explain why the caretaker decided to act in this way, he might be, in a way trying to reenact a narrative that requires killing the incest father and mimicking him at the same time.
Approaching the story in this way, sheds new light on why the old man lacks a name or title; it also goes into why the location, timing, and method of murder are significant; and why the old man was dismembered in the way he was; as well as the reason why he was so conflicted to 1) hide and 2) confess to committing the crime; and why is the fact that he couldn’t distinguish between his own body and that of the old man so significant (Kachur). The idea that psychological issues are brought about due to a form of traumatic events, might also answer the question of why the caretaker is going mad even though he doesn’t think he is.
The idea of incest can be seen everywhere in this story if one looks hard enough like 1) the caretaker even said that he wanted the old man to experience what he experienced, thus giving us the idea that the old man had done something bad to hurt him; 2) he conducted everything with precision, that must be carried out carefully and thoughtfully; 3) all of these events happened at night, which also gives us reason to believe that incest might have been carried out; 4) the caretaker even used the old man’s bed to suffocate him, the use of the bed could be a symbol to indicate a sexual predator’s tools; and finally the way he dismembers the old man’s body where he “cut off the head, arms, and legs (669).” This visual could be connected to the idea that the old man had utilized these body parts on the caretaker’s body to pleasure himself. Then the fact that he “pulled up three planks from the floor and deposited the body parts into the space (669),” all of this was done in the old man’s room which we can infer was where the old man tried to keep his secret of incest hidden.
Another interesting fact is that a molester attacks outside of his own family or immediate social unit, while an incest perpetrator must construct a double life. This is carried out by the fact that the caretaker revels in how well he was able to lead this double life, “With what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him (667).” One more thing that connects this idea of incest is his being more alert “The disease had sharpened my senses – not destroyed – not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute (666),” this ties in with the statement that “adult incest victims complain of being hyper-alert and nervous,” which is something that we can see happening within this story.
In one study, according to Kachur, incest victims “described barricading themselves in their blacked-out rooms at times when they were frightened by men,” this in a way could explain why the old man’s room was “as black as pitch with the thick darkness, (for the shutters were close fastened, through fear of robbers) (667),” it can be understood that maybe the old man had gone through the same childhood trauma, thus the reason why he had “attacked” the caretaker in the same manner. This then takes us back to the significance of the “vulture eye,” the caretaker also sees himself as being prey and being dead – the kind of food vultures eat, thus identifying the old man as a physical predator, and the caretaker as someone who feels dead and helpless as a result of this stalking (Kachur). Unfortunately, this feeling of deadness is one of the most common symptoms of sexual abuse:
“In adulthood, the abuse survivor […] may report self-estrangement and emotional deadness. His detachment may be the extension of the defensive repression and suppression of feelings that he learned in childhood. Additionally, it may be due to his fear that, if he does allow himself to feel, the feelings (especially anger) will be so intense that he will victimize others or go crazy”
Furthermore, this idea of “victimizing others and/or causing them to go crazy” is something that we see happening to the caretaker, he slowly goes crazy because of this disease. A statement by Lisa Ferentz can further explain why the caretaker’s focus is set solely upon the old man’s eye:
“The eye can represent hypervigilance related to watching and waiting for the next abuse episode. It can also represent a lack of privacy and boundaries, a knowledge of being watched by the perpetrator.”
However, in the case of the caretaker, there is no indication that he fears the eye, rather he just seems to form an idea of hatred for the eye instead of fear (Tucker).
Moving on we see that the caretaker cannot keep boundaries between his own body and that of the old man, this not only represents the physical boundary violation of incest but also the distorted boundary between one\’s self that most incest victims experience psychologically. Here’s another idea that can be inferred, the caretaker, in hearing his own beating heart and fearing that it’s the old man should show you that he was abused as a child. Young children can become hypervigilant, which is an enhanced sense of sensitivity that may bring about an increased state of anxiety, someone with this “may know that the threatening parent is dead but may still fear them, thinking that they may not be officially dead (Kachur),” we can see this happening with the caretaker.
Going along with this B. D Tucker in his article “The Tell-Tale Heart’ and the ‘Evil Eye,” indicates that the caretaker, how crazy he may be, can feel the old man’s terror as if it were his own, these points we can gather that something big must have happened to “connect” the two people in some way; quite possibly by a form of some type of traumatic event something like incest. It’s also interesting how because of this terror he experiences a crazy fantasy about being able to hear the old man’s heartbeat, even though he’s dead, however, this heartbeat he hears is his own. This could tell you that the caretaker’s guilt had come to life due to the deed he had committed, interesting enough this idea of guilt and this idea of incest seems to be a major theme of this story.
Despite the caretaker going to extraordinary lengths to hide all forms of evidence of the crime he, “replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly that no human eye – not even his – could have detected anything wrong. There was nothing to wash out – no stain of any kind – no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary of that. A tub had caught all (669).” Despite all this, he still could not rid himself of the fear that the officers knew what he had done, “that their ears have heard the throbbing of the heart, and that their eye has penetrated through the darkness of the night to find him out (Tucker).” However, no matter what he did he could not rid himself of the sound of the beating heart.
This then brings us to the idea of “Sadomasochism,” which is a sexual practice that can be characterized by both sadism and masochism (Pritchard). This idea of love and hate helps tie this idea of sadomasochism together, another thing that ties it together is the idea that a “sadist suffers from a fixed idea,” which in the case of this story is the old man’s eye. It becomes the caretaker\’s obsession “I did this for seven long nights – every night just at midnight… I looked in upon him while he slept (667).”
According to Wilhelm Stekel, who stated that “the sadist strives for a total annihilation of the object,” and “every sadist is a murderer.” These statements seem kind of fitting because the murderer seems to be very proud of carrying out his crimes and then brags about how calmly he carried out the deed “I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph… I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart (pp.667-668).” With this in mind you can sense that he delights in cruel things for “cruelty requires the consciousness of cruelty, joy in another’s hurt, delight in a sense of power over another’s life (Pritchard).” The caretaker even admitted that the night of the murder led him to, for the first time, “feel the extent of my powers (667),” he not only received pleasure from murdering the old man but also received pleasure in the obsessive ritual that preceded it. The caretaker also viewed the officers as sadists who were taking pleasure in his pain “They heard! – they suspected! – they knew! – they were making a mockery of my horror! (pp.669-670),” this should show you how diseases his mind is.
This brings us to the end, the beating of the heart at the end is his own rather than that of the old man, which might tell you that he ultimately felt guilty for committing the deed, thus admitting to the officers that he had done wrong.
Works Cited
- Kachur, Robert M. “Buried in the bedroom: bearing witness to incest in Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’.” Mosaic: A journal for the interdisciplinary study of literature, vol. 41, no. 1, 2008, p. 43+. Gale Literature Resource Center, https://gale-com. Accessed 22 Mar. 2020.
- Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Levine, Robert S. The Norton Anthology of American Literature: 1820-1865. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2017. Print. Pp. 666-670.
- Pritchard, Hollie. “Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart.” The Explicator, vol. 61, no. 3, Taylor & Francis Ltd., 2003.
- Tucker, B.D. “The Tell-Tale Heart’ and the ‘Evil Eye.” The Southern Literary Journal, vol. 13, no. 2, 1981, p. 92+. Gale Literature Resource Center, https://link-gale-com. Accessed 24 March 2020.
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