“… A pale blue eye, with film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold…” (Poe 1). This is one of many eerie examples that you will read in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell Tale Heart.” This mysterious short story is about a madman who takes the life of an old man and gradually becomes insane from listening to the dead man’s heart beat. Eventually causing him to turn himself in. The main character shows in “The Tell Tale Heart” that committing a crime always ends with consequences.

In the beginning of the tale Poe writes that the madman can’t handle the old man’s vexing eye and therefore decides to take his life. It started as an idea the madman had, for the vexing eye of the innocent old man had become too much. No longer did the madman have mercy on the poor old soul… it was already decided; there was nothing the old man could do to stop it, for the old man was to be killed. Edgar Allan Poe states on page one, “…whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold, so by degrees, very gradually I made up my mind to take the life of the old man” (1). This is an example of how Poe describes the madman becoming very annoyed by the old man’s eye.

He started by stalking the old man for eight nights before he killed him. The madman would quietly sneak into the old man’s house and watch him sleep every night. This shows that the madman truly was mad because he would stalk the old man. Finally, on the eighth night of stalking, the old man heard the madman and Poe writes “…the old man sprang up in bed, crying out –“who’s there?’” (3). The Mad Man knew his cover was blown, therefore he decided to get the killing over with, as it states, “He shrieked once, only once. In an instant I dragged him to the floor and pulled the heavy bed over him” (5). This is an example of how the madman kills the old man, yet does not think about the consequences of his doing.

After all of the dirty work was finished, the madman threw the dead man’s body under his floor boards and went about life as usual. The next day the madman was feeling quite cheerful when he heard it; “Thump, thump, thump” it was the sound of a heart beating. Not thinking much of it, he prepared for his interview with the police. Only a fraction of time had passed before he said, “… I knew that sound too well, it was the beating of the old man’s heart” (4). This demonstrates that the madman is just starting to hear things out of the ordinary, which was leading him to insanity. Later it states, “… At length I found the noise was not within my ears” (7). Later that same day the police arrived to interview the madman about the murder. All was going well except for the fact that that he kept hearing the heartbeat of the now dead man…

Finally at the end of the story the madman eventually becomes so overwhelmed by the beating of the heart, he does something during his interview that will very heavily affect the rest of his life… He said, “Almighty God! – No, no! They heard, they suspected- they knew, they were making a mockery of my horror!” (7). This is yet another illustration of the madman slowly becoming more and more mad! By the end of the story he cannot take the horribly thunderous sound of the heart of the dead man any longer and screams to the police, “Villains! Dissemble no more, I admit the deed! Tear up the planks, here, here!” (8). And with that he was sent to jail. This demonstrates how throughout the story the madman becomes completely insane by the end of the story.

Committing crimes will always lead to consequence as it did for the madman. His consequences may not have been death, but it was enough for him to realize that what he had done will lead to consequences either way, whether he was expecting them or not. The madman’s consequences for murder were not only time in prison and insanity, but also having to live the rest of his life with the piercing sound of the heartbeat that will remind him until the day he dies of what he has done in his past.