How can you prove that you are mentally stable? In Edgar Allen Poe's short story "The Tell Tale Heart", the narrator of the story explains how he was calm and sane in the days before he got rid of the vulture eye. “The Tell Tale Heart” is the story of an unnamed man who planned to kill the old man with the vulture eye. Night after night, the narrator carefully made his way into the old man's room to make sure not to wake him and watched the man's vulture eye. On the eighth night, the narrator managed to kill the man and left no evidence of the murder. The narrator now feels happy that he no longer has to endure the eye of the vulture. However, in the story, it is depicted that the dead man's heart continued to beat, which began to incapacitate the narrator's mental state. “The Tell Tale Heart” illustrates how the narrator's nervousness drove him crazy. The narrator had mixed emotions towards the old man. The narrator claimed that he loved the old man and did not want his money (Poe, 1). He began to say that he had never been mean to that man until his death. Why would he want to kill his loved one and not receive any kind of compensation for his death? He said: "I have decided to take the old man's life, and thus get rid of the eye forever" (p. 1). As the narrator continued to prove that he was of sound mind, he began to explain the nights that led him to achieve his goal of getting rid of the vulture eye. Readers may interpret that the old man has an illness such that he has discoloration in only one eye. Now, the time was coming for the narrator to strike his victim. We soon learn that the narrator heartlessly kills the old man. The narrator had already planned the old man's murder. Before the murder... middle of paper...ed! – tear up the boards! here, here! – it's the beating of his hideous heart!' - shouted the narrator (p. 5). What the narrator mistook for the old man's beating heart was actually echoing in his mind, the guilt of killing the old man, perhaps, caused the narrator to become irrational (p. 3-5). The heart told the story of the murder. He was sure he had gotten away with murder. The narrator no longer had to endure the agony of the vulture's eye, but there was a new problem. The mystery of the old man's beating heart gave the narrator the idea that the police officers also knew about the horrible murder. As the heartbeats became louder, the narrator could no longer bear the sound of the heat. However, the sound the narrator heard was not real. It was all in his head. The narrator's judgments to prove that he was sane proved that he was mentally unstable.