I didn't even know the meaning of the title “The Tell-Tale Heart”. After a short research, I learned that ‘tell tales’ are stories that are very hard to believe but still related as if they were true. The first thing I noticed as I read through the novel was that the entire story was based on the murderer’s perspective. I could actually move into the killer’s emotions and behavior, how much he was agitated and anxious before and after the murder. I could follow how his streak of thinking changed before and after the event, especially because the way he described was as if he was directly telling me. He was very cautious and horrified before choking the man, but became sloppy and impulsive when the police came into his premises.
The main symmetry in this book was the Evil Eye and the lantern. The teller didn’t want the lantern light to reach the old man’s eye and yet it did. The moment he threw the lantern into the old man’s room, it was a declaration of murder. He was so obsessed with his eyes that even after the man’s death, he was careful that the eye didn’t notice what he was doing to get rid of the body. The lantern was the means to kill the man and the eye was the trigger to commit murder. However, the similarity of these two elements is that it was both used to justify his deed. I would want to learn more about what the lantern and the eye actually symbolize according to the writer Ellen Poe’s thoughts.