Tell Tell Heart : Use of Point of View
             There is a belief that the eyes are windows to the soul. But to some, the soul resides in the heart. In Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell Tell Heart," he also links these two body parts. The story opens with this unnamed narrator telling of how he will kill the old man because-well the reason he gives-he dislikes his "Evil Eye" yet, in the end it is the old man's beating heart that drives the narrator to confess to the killing. Poe strategically employs first person narrative for the point of view because the reader receives an extended understanding of the narrator and it enhances the interest of the reader.
             The purpose for a first person narrative is often to give supplementary understanding of the story. With this style, Poe is capable of giving explanations to the motives of the narrator and his feelings of reflection after the killing too. The narrator explains, "One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture . . . Whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold" (293). The narrator presents this as the motive to kill the old man. Since the eye represents the windows to the soul, the narrator distresses over the purest of the old man in comparison to his own making the old man's eye symbolize his soul and morals. This would be a logical motive, but since Poe does not mention or hint at this fact, it can be ruled out; it leaves the notion that the narrator has no logical motive for his killing besides the eye makes his "blood run cold." This only hints at fear, but it is a complete mystery to why the narrator would fear this old man because he states in the beginning, "I loved the old man" (292). Since he has no reason to kill the man, may it be that he formulates a reason so he may have one? After he hides the body and the police stop by to investigate the "shriek" during the night, the narrators expresses, "I smiled,-for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome" (298). The na...