This short story is a very short yet complex account of the narrator killing another man. After reading the story through a few times and understanding the plot, I was able to question and manipulate what Poe wrote to construct my own understanding. The first thing that I questioned was the sanity or rather the insanity of the narrator. He questions his sanity himself, so why shouldn’t I as the reader do the same. The mental state of the narrator effects the entire story. It changes the face whether the beating of the heart is real, whether this man’s eye was really evil, and also if this story is even real. As many of criticizers and analyzers of this story have said, the uncertainty of the narrator’s mental state, makes them very unreliable. Just like in real life. A person would not listen to an insane person or believe anything they said, because why? THEY’RE INSANE! And if I have to question if someone is sane or not, gives me reason enough to question everything that they do or say anyway. And though the narrator takes a very careful approach to the way he wants to kill the man, he’s insane for wanting to kill the man over his eye. No person’s eye is that diabolical that it could someone to want to kill them. So this here is enough evidence for me to claim that the narrator is insane, because he should be mentally stable enough to control himself and not let futile things, such as the apperance of someone’s eye to effect him to the point of killing. ANd furthermore, if a person tries to continue to convince someone of something (in this case that the narrator is sane) gives me reason to question it. The more a character in a story or maybe someone in real life, the more I become suspicious of the situation.
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