"What parallels do you see in the story? What do these parallels suggest about the narrator's motivation in killing the old man and then confessing his crime?"

Our society has been studying the mind of a killer for many years.  Over the years one of the most difficult groups to analyze has been the psychotic killers.  What do they think when they commit the crime? What motivations do they have?
In Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, Poe writes the story from the killer’s perspective describing the events and thoughts happening during the murder.  Through the story, Poe illustrates parallels to portray the narrator’s motivation of the murder and the confession of the crime.

First, we must consider the motivation of the narrator.  He mentions the reason he killed the old man was because of the old man’s “Evil Eye”.  However, as he mentions in the story, “I think it was his eye! yes, it was this!” (Poe "The Tale"), the narrator is not certain of the motive to kill the old man.  So he decides the old man’s evil eye is the primary reason.  When the time comes to commit the murder, the narrator starts hearing the heartbeat of the old man.  Then the narrator says, “And now a new anxiety seized me — the sound would be heard by a neighbor! The old man's hour had come!” (Poe "The Tale").  At the last minute he changed his motive from the evil eye to the heartbeat.  This indicates that the narrator did not truly have motive of killing the old man.  Then what is the nature behind these two reasons?  It can be explained by looking into the narrator’s conscience.  The narrator has a desire to kill the old man, but he does not have a good enough motive to commit the murder.  Instead, he makes excuses and carries out the crime to satisfy his need.  In both situations (the evil eye and the heartbeat), the motivation reflects the narrator’s guilt.  The evil eye that he sees in the old man is the reflection of his evil side.  His conscience tells him that the evil eye is in fact himself, but he thinks it is the old man’s eye.  The heartbeat can be explained in the same manner as well.  The narrator starts hearing the heartbeat two times, right before the killing and after the killing.  The heartbeat that the narrator is hearing is the heartbeat of his own.  His conscience is warning him of the consequences he may encounter if he does the deed, eventually leading the narrator to confess the crime.  The parallel in this story is the evil eye and the heartbeat that comes from the narrator’s conscience, which leads to both his motivation and confession of the crime.

Poe uses the parallels to illustrate the conflict between the good & evil side of the killer. Poe’s message in this story is even the most horrifying killers too possess a sense of right and wrong, good and evil in their minds.  However, we cannot really know what they think unless we become one of them, and that and that shall remain a mystery for our society.

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