The Tell Tale Heart [Review] ESP/ENG

This is one of the best stories by one of my favorite writers, Edgar Allan Poe. It tells the story of a man who lives with an old man who has a blind or disabled eye. However, the protagonist feels uneasy every time the old man looks at him; he somehow thinks that eye is like that of a vulture. So, every night he watches him while he sleeps to see what the old man will do. On the eighth night, the old man wakes up startled, feeling watched. The sound of his old heartbeat is so loud that the protagonist can hear it. At that moment, he can't stand it anymore and throws himself on the old man, suffocating him to death. Then, seeing what he had done, he decided to dismember the body and hide it under the floorboards of that same room. Then, some police officers arrive at the house, alerted by neighbors who heard screams. The protagonist, very confident in his ability to hide the body, invites the officers into the same room where the crime occurred, and where the body is under the floorboards. However, the disturbing thing about the matter is that when he is talking to the police officers, he begins to perceive a certain buzzing sound that then transforms into the ticking of a clock and then into the heartbeat of the old man. The sound becomes so insistent and unbearable that he ends up confessing his crime.

Este es uno de los mejores cuentos de uno de mis escritores favoritos, Edgar Allan Poe y nos cuenta la historia de un hombre que vive con un anciano que tiene un ojo ciego o vedado, sin embargo el protagonista se siente inquieto cada vez que el anciano lo mira, de alguna forma piensa que ese ojo es como de un buitre, así que cada noche lo vigila mientras duerme para saber que hará el anciano, y durante la octava noche el anciano despierta sobresaltado al sentirse observado, el sonido del corazón del anciano es tan fuerte que el protagonista de la historia puede oírlo, así que en ese momento no puede soportarlo y se lanza sobre el anciano, asfixiándolo hasta matarlo, y luego al verlo que hizo decidió descuartizar el cuerpo y esconderlo debajo de las tablas del suelo de esa misma habitación. Luego, algunos oficiales de policía llegan a la casa alertado por unos vecinos que advirtieron gritos, y el protagonista muy confiado de su habilidad al esconder el cadáver invita a los oficiales a pasar a la misma habitación donde ocurrió el crimen, y donde el cadáver está bajo las tablas del suelo, sin embargo lo perturbador del asunto es que cuando él está conversando con los policías comienza a percibir cierto zumbido que se transforma luego en el latido de un reloj y después en el latido del corazón del anciano, y el sonido se vuelve tan insistente e insoportable que él termina confesando su crimen.

The story begins with the protagonist's paranoia, which means that the main motive for his vile act is not cowardice or malice, but something more complex: he cannot control his feelings, he is a victim of his own imbalances. It starts as a simple idea, but this idea gains strength until it becomes a torment that compels him to commit the crime. This is important because, even though it was unknown at the time Edgar Allan Poe wrote the story, this is how we know that mental illness can end if it is not treated in time. The human mind is a wellspring of mysteries, and when something within it atrophies, everything can turn out very badly. The poor old man didn't know what his mere presence, or rather, his blind eye, provoked in the one who would later become his murderer.

If we analyze the story carefully, we will realize that although the story itself is frightening, it is not about something paranormal but something much more earthly and which can be equally terrifying. The beating of the dead old man's heart is nothing more than the result of the main character's own tormented conscience. He feels guilt and tries to disguise it, but it is there and manifests itself in the form of torment, which eventually leads him to confess his actions, because it is not really in his nature to be a murderer; what he did was motivated by his mental vulnerability.

But what truly impresses me is Allan Poe's ability to portray the protagonist's complicated feelings and his own gradual descent into madness, since the story is narrated in the first person by him, the main character, who tries to convince the reader of his own sanity, but the more he does so, the more he reveals his mental instability, so through his pen Poe invites us to reflect on obsessions and the path of destruction to which they can lead.

And well, people, that's all for today's post, I hope you liked it. Thank you very much as always for supporting my work, I welcome new readers, I love you all very much, I send you a hug and I'll see you in another post.

I made the cover and farewell image in Canva