The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings

by Edgar Allan Poe

How, then, am I mad?

Beginning of unreliabilty

It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha!—would a madman have been so wise as this?

IRONY!

sagacity.

For a whole hour I did not move a muscle,

Crazy

I could see nothing else of the old man’s face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot.

And now a new anxiety seized me—the sound would be heard by a neighbor! The old man’s hour had come!

In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim.

“Villains!” I shrieked, “dissemble no more! I admit the deed!—tear up the planks!—here, here!—it is the beating of his hideous heart!”