Synopsis

Driven to madness by the damaged eye of a benevolent old man, the protagonist kills him, but is driven further mad from his guilt.

History

First publication: The Pioneer, January 1843

It is very short, only 4 pages in my book of Poe stories.

Review

Great opening line:
“True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?”

The character is unstable, showing paranoid ideas about the old man’s eye, which leads him to want to kill the old man.

Poe has a masterful slow building of suspense. You know what is going to happen, but the tension is still great. He hears the old man’s heart beating which makes him all the more furious. He smothers the man, dismembers him and puts the remains under the floorboards of the house. The murder is elaborately premeditated. The police show up just after he is finished cleaning up. A neighbor reported a shriek. He invites the officers in to search and confidently invites them to sit in the old man’s chamber where the remains are beneath the floor. This very much repeats what Poe wrote in the end of The Black Cat, which was published later that year. The officers hang around chatting and he starts hearing a noise which gets worse and makes him agitated. He is convinced they can hear the sound and finally shouts his confession.

This is an excellent telling of how a man can be consumed by inner guilt and how sin and an irrational mind can destroy a person.