Rated: 5/5
Plot
The story starts with the narrator saying he is not mad; as if someone accused him of being so. He also vaguely mentions a ‘disease’, which could probably be the reason but does not elaborate any further.
But why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses-not destroyed-not dulled them.
Throughout the story he repeats again and again that he is not mad. But, this unnamed man is also responsible for murdering a man just because his ‘Vulture eye’ frightened him.
He reasons with the audience (I’m assuming it’s the audience since he keeps referring to the other person as “you”, when there’s no one there. BUT, it could also be an imaginary person.) that his reasons for killing this man were valid. The madman goes on to talk about how kindly he treated the man a week before he killed him.
Madmen know nothing….
You should have seen how wisely I proceeded- with what caution-with what foresight-with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him.
In reality, every night he looked upon that man while he slept and would shine his lantern at the old man’s ‘Evil Eye’ every night waiting for him to open it.
After he ends up murdering the man, he happily explains the process of hiding the body and remarks how careful he had been.
There was nothing to wash out-no stain of any kind-no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. a tub had caught all- ha! ha!
So much so, that when the police come to his house suspecting suspicious activity (the neighbors called them when they heard a noise), he invites them in the house and makes them sit in the room where he killed the man! He placed his own chair right on the spot where he hid the corpse. All this time, he is so full of conceit.
Even till the end of the story, it looks as if he has no remorse. He looks completely at ease and happy. But this changes when he begin to hear a ringing sound. Gradually this sound escalated to a full -blown sound resembling the beating of a heart. Only he seems to be able to hear this.
Yet the sound increased -and what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound-much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped with cotton. I gasped for breath-yet the officers heard it not.
Throughout the story, he tries his best to hide his immoral deed and even seeks to convince himself and the audience that he does not feel any guilt over his actions. He rationalizes his every move. But, in the end his guilt is apparent, and he ends up shouting his confession at the police officers.
Review
I loved the short story. Especially how the narrator rationalized his every action, however twisted and wrong it may seem to us (or ‘you’, according to the narrator). The most prominent characteristic of the narrator was how paranoid he was. He killed an innocent man because he was paranoid, and he confessed because he was paranoid that he could still hear the dead man’s heart beating. With this ending, the story came full circle for me even though I know the ending was a moral one, that bad deeds cannot be hidden.
The Beauty and Her Reads 