The Tell-Tale Heart is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1843. The story is narrated by an unnamed individual who insists on their sanity while describing the calculated murder of an old man. The narrator claims to love the old man but is driven to kill him because of his “vulture eye”—a pale, blue eye that deeply unsettles them. Over several nights, the narrator stealthily watches the old man as he sleeps, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Eventually, they kill the man and conceal the body beneath the floorboards.
Despite the careful execution of the crime, the narrator begins to hear a mysterious, persistent sound—what they believe is the old man’s heart still beating beneath the floor. The noise grows louder and more unbearable, eventually overwhelming the narrator with guilt and paranoia. In a fit of madness, they confess to the murder, unable to bear the imagined sound any longer. Through themes of guilt, madness, and the unreliable narrator, Poe crafts a psychological horror story that explores the dark depths of the human mind.
