The Murderers Motivation Depicted in Poes The Tell-Tale...

Poes writings are not without morals, and as a representation of a guilty conscience, â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart† has been called one of the most effective parables ever conceived (Ward 310). â€Å"I find it almost impossible to believe that Poe has no serious or artistic motive in The Tell-Tale Heart, that he merely revels in horror and only inadvertently illuminates the depths of the human soul,† James Gargano asserts. He further states that though Poes stories sometimes seem to be nothing more than ramblings of crazed narrators, the structure, development, arrangement, and irony of the narrators confessions allow Poe to offer ideas which the narrators themselves never actually possessed (â€Å"The Question† 328). For example, the narrator is†¦show more content†¦According to the second erroneous theory, another influence to the narrators madness is the similarity between himself and his victim. The gaze of the evil eye is duplicated in the dim ray of l ight from the lantern, and the narrator and victim both remain completely still in the dark, not moving a muscle, listening. Other sensory details connect the two until they seem to be the same person, and since the narrator wishes to destroy himself, he murders the old man (Robinson 258-59). These assertions that time and unity with the old man are the two pivotal motifs driving the narrator to murder are mistaken. Time plays a different role in relation to the dastardly plot, and the murder has nothing to do with the old man himself, only his eye. The extension of time in the story is only a result of the narrators caution in his preparations for the murder. The prolonging of time does not cause the narrator grief and certainly does not drive him to homicide. In fact, his slow movements were intentional. â€Å"I moved it slowly – very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old mans sleep† (46). The narrator says these words, referring to thrusting his head thr ough the doorway to look into the old mans bedroom. Next he says, â€Å"And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously, – oh, so cautiously – cautiously (for the hinges creaked)† (Poe 46). The slowness of the action is simply a precaution. Also, the beating of the