Edgar Allan Poe Short Stories: Compare and contrast the stories with a focus on the main themes - Essay Example

He builds an intense hatred for the old man but it is not based on any real reasons and he can not even pinpoint why he hates the old man’s eye which comes across as something that scares him intensely. The narrator also seems to be undergoing some kind of hallucination since he can hear the beating of a dead heart from beneath the floorboards while others around him appear to be blissfully unaware of the sounds. There is also the ritualistic event of the narrator standing at the door of the old man’s room just looking at him while he sleeps.

The narrator is certainly contemplating murder yet he does not understand why he feels the urge for it. The murder itself is only committed when the old man awakes as the narrator looks on him and the narrator gets to see the eye which he hates so much. While these events may sound like the works of a deranged person, the continual insistence of the narrator remains that he is perfectly sane and is in complete control of his mental abilities. He supports this position by showing that he was able to successfully hide the body in pieces under the floorboards and meticulously cleans the house to remove any trace of the murder.

When the police come to investigate, he is completely confident about him getting away with the crime and even invites them to sit in the same room where he had buried the old man. It is clear that the police do not suspect him of anything since he is extremely composed and is chatting with them amicably. However, things go seriously wrong at that point since the narrator seems to undergo a hallucination which could have bee brought on by his own feelings of guilt. He starts to hear the beating of the old man’s heart while the police sit around and hear nothing.

He even thinks that the policemen can hear the heart as well but are merely ignoring it so that he can admit to the crime himself. This drives him to lose all control as he confesses to the murder and asks the police