"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1843. It is told by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of the narrator's sanity while simultaneously describing a murder the narrator committed. The victim was an old man with a filmy pale blue "vulture-eye", as the narrator calls it. The narrator emphasizes the careful calculation of the murder, attempting the perfect crime, complete with dismembering the body in the bathtub and hiding it under the floorboards. Ultimately, the narrator's actions result in hearing a thumping sound, which the narrator interprets as the dead man's beating heart.
The story was first published in James Russell Lowell's The Pioneer in January 1843. "The Tell-Tale Heart" is often considered a classic of the Gothic fiction genre and is one of Poe's best known short stories.
The specific motivation for murder, aside from the narrator's hatred of the old man's eye, the relationship between narrator and old man, the gender of the narrator, and other details are left unclear. The narrator denies having any feelings of hatred or resentment for the man who had, as stated, "never wronged" the narrator. The narrator also denies having killed for greed.
Critics have speculated that the old man could be a father figure, the narrator's landlord, or that the narrator works for the old man as a servant, and that perhaps his "vulture-eye" represents a veiled secret or power. The ambiguity and lack of details about the two main characters stand in contrast to the specific plot details leading up to the murder.
Contents
Plot
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a first-person narrative told by an unnamed narrator. Despite insisting that they are sane, the narrator suffers from a disease (nervousness) which causes "over-acuteness of the senses".
The old man, with whom the narrator lives, has a clouded, pale, blue "vulture-like" eye, which distresses and manipulates the narrator so much that they plot to murder the old man, despite also insisting that the narrator loves the old man and has never felt wronged by him. The narrator is insistent that this careful precision in committing the murder proves that they cannot possibly be insane. For seven nights, the narrator opens the door of the old man's room to shine a sliver of light onto the "evil eye". However, the old man's vulture-eye is always closed, making it impossible to "do the work", thus making the narrator go further into distress.
On the eighth night, the old man awakens after the narrator's hand slips and makes a noise, interrupting the narrator's nightly ritual. The narrator does not draw back and after some time, decides to open the lantern. A single thin ray of light shines out and lands precisely on the "evil eye", revealing that it is wide open. The narrator hears the old man's heart beating, which only gets louder and louder. This increases the narrator's anxiety to the point where they decide to strike. They jump into the room and the old man shrieks once before he is killed. The narrator then dismembers the body and conceals the pieces under the floorboards, ensuring the concealment of all signs of the crime. Even so, the old man's scream during the night causes a neighbor to summon the police, whom the narrator invites in to look around. The narrator claims that the scream heard was their own in a nightmare and that the old man is absent in the country. Confident that they will not find any evidence of the murder, the narrator brings chairs for them and they sit in the old man's room. The narrator's chair is placed on the very spot where the body is concealed; the police suspect nothing, and the narrator has a pleasant and easy manner.
The narrator begins to feel uncomfortable and notices a ringing in their ears. As the ringing grows louder, the narrator concludes that it is the heartbeat of the old man coming from under the floorboards. The sound increases steadily to the narrator, though the officers do not seem to hear it. Terrified by the violent beating of the heart and convinced that the officers are aware of not only the heartbeat but also the narrator's guilt, the narrator breaks down and confesses. The narrator tells them to tear up the floorboards to reveal the remains of the old man's body.
Publication history
Poe wrote the short story in Philadelphia, where he resided at various locations from 1838 to 1844.
"The Tell-Tale Heart" was first published in January 1843 in the inaugural issue of The Pioneer: A Literary and Critical Magazine, a short-lived Boston magazine edited by James Russell Lowell and Robert Carter who were listed as the "proprietors" on the front cover. The magazine was published in Boston by Leland and Whiting and in Philadelphia by Drew and Scammell.
Poe was likely paid $10 (equivalent to $346 in 2025) for the story. Its original publication included an epigraph that quoted Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "A Psalm of Life." The story was slightly revised when republished on August 23, 1845, edition of the Broadway Journal. That edition omitted Longfellow's poem because Poe believed it was plagiarized. "The Tell-Tale Heart" was reprinted several more times during Poe's lifetime.
Analysis
"The Tell-Tale Heart" uses an unreliable narrator. The exactness with which the narrator recounts murdering the old man, as if the stealthy way in which they executed the crime were evidence of their sanity, reveals their monomania and paranoia. The focus of the story is the perverse scheme to commit the perfect crime. One interpretation is that Poe wrote the narrator in a way that "allows the reader to identify with the narrator".
The narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart" is generally assumed to be a male. However, some critics have suggested a woman may be narrating; no pronouns are used to clarify one way or the other. The story starts in medias res, opening with a conversation already in progress between the narrator and another person who is not identified in any way. It has been speculated that the narrator is confessing to a prison warden, a judge, a reporter, a doctor, or a psychiatrist. In any case, the narrator tells the story in great detail. What follows is a study of terror but, more specifically, the memory of terror as the narrator is retelling events from the past. The first word of the story, "True!", is an admission of their guilt, as well as an assurance of reliability. This introduction also serves to gain the reader's attention. Every word contributes to the purpose of moving the story forward, exemplifying Poe's theories about the writing of short stories.
The story is driven not by the narrator's insistence upon their "innocence", but by their insistence on their sanity. This, however, is self-destructive, because in attempting to prove their sanity, they fully admit that they are guilty of murder. Their denial of insanity is based on their systematic actions and their precision, as they provide a rational explanation for irrational behavior. This rationality, however, is undermined by their lack of motive ("Object there was none. Passion there was none"). Despite this, they say, the idea of murder "haunted me day and night". It is difficult to fully understand the narrator's true emotions about the blue-eyed man because of this contradiction. It is said that "At the same time he disclosed a deep psychological confusion", referring to the narrator and the comment that "Object there was none. Passion there was none" and that the idea of murder "haunted me day and night".
The story's final scene shows the result of the narrator's feelings of guilt. Like many characters in Gothic fiction, they allow their nerves to dictate their nature. Despite their best efforts at defending their actions, their "over-acuteness of the senses"; which helps them hear the heart beating beneath the floorboards, is evidence that they are truly mad. The guilt in the narrator can be seen when the narrator confessed to the police that the body of the old man was under the floorboards. Even though the old man was dead, the body and heart of the dead man still seemed to haunt the narrator and convict them of the act. "Since such processes of reasoning tend to convict the speaker of madness, it does not seem out of keeping that he is driven to confession", according to scholar Arthur Robinson. Poe's contemporaries may well have been reminded of the controversy over the insanity defense in the 1840s. The confession can be due to a concept called the "illusion of transparency". According to the "Encyclopedia of Social Psychology", "Poe's character falsely believes that some police officers can sense his guilt and anxiety over a crime he has committed, a fear that ultimately gets the best of him and causes him to give himself up unnecessarily".
Adaptations
In 1908, The Tell-Tale Heart was adapted into Catalan as a theatrical monologue titled Cor delator by A. Albert i Torrellas; it premiered at the Teatre Romea in Barcelona on 22 May 1908 and was performed by Ramon Tor.
The earliest acknowledged adaptation of "The Tell-Tale Heart" was in a 1928 20-minute American silent film of that title co-directed and co-produced by Leon Shamroy and Charles Klein, and starring Otto Matieson as "The Insane", William Herford as "The Old Man" with Charles Darvas and Hans Fuerberg as "Detectives". It was faithful to the original tale, unlike future television and film adaptations which often expanded the short story to full-length feature films.
The earliest known "talkie" adaptation was a 1934 version filmed at the Blattner Studios, Elstree, by Clifton-Hurst Productions, directed by Brian Desmond Hurst and starring Norman Dryden. This version was 55 minutes in length.
A 1941 live-action adaptation starred Joseph Schildkraut and was the directorial debut of Jules Dassin. This version differs greatly from the original tale, depicting the murderer as driven mad after suffering years of abuse by the hateful older man.
On August 23, 1946, Orson Welles hosted and introduced a radio broadcast on The Mercury Summer Theatre of the Air show on CBS.
A 1947 Polish film, Zdradzieckie serce ("Treacherous Heart") by Jerzy Zarzycki, was never released.
A 1953 animated short film produced by UPA and narrated by James Mason is included among the list of films preserved in the United States National Film Registry.
Also in 1953, an EC Comics adaptation of "The Tell-Tale Heart" entitled "Sleep No More", written by William Gaines and Al Feldstein and illustrated by George Evans (cartoonist) appeared in Shock SuspenStories.
In 1956, an adaptation of "The Tell-Tale Heart" was written by William Templeton for the NBC Matinee Theater and aired on November 6, 1956.