A Tell-Tale Heart

           Thousands of people have probably sat down and read A Tell-Tale Heart and tried to figure out the meaning behind the story. There are some theories that say the man is completely out of his mind, and he hallucinates the whole entire thing. There are others that say he is out of his mind, and he had no good reason to kill the old man, but he believes that his reason is as good as any, and he is just trying to convince people who think he is crazy. Still others say that he is not completely out of his mind. Perhaps he was mistreated or molested by this old man when he was a young boy, and he has blocked out the memories, but still has that hatred inside him. In each scenario it seems, no matter what the theory, this man truly does not think he is crazy. He honestly believes this was an okay thing to do.

            In my opinion, I think the man has a severe mental disability. I do not know what kind (my guess would be schizophrenia), but it is very, very serious. He finds it completely normal to murder a helpless old man, just because he has a freaky eye. He could be a religious man, convinced that the eye is the devil’s eye. But that would not make the man any less crazy. No one in top mental condition would believe it was okay. I think the man believes what he did was okay, and he does not know his own sickness. They say the mark of a crazy person is to not know that they are crazy. When the policemen come over to check out the scene, at first the man is totally suave. He gives away nothing. But as the night goes on he begins to feel ill, and eventually he ends up raving and swearing and banging chairs around, while the cops just sit there smiling. I am of the opinion that the man is doing nothing of the sort. I think it was probably all in his head, and the beating of the heart he was hearing was actually his own consciousness. When I read this story, I believe he really did kill the old man because of some mental disability, and when he confesses, it is not out of guilt or remorse, but just because there was something so big that he was keeping inside of him that he had to get out.