I am making a chapbook over Poe's Tell Tale Heart, and I need a good interpretation of the "evil eye" that is talked about in the story. I've done lot's of research but haven't got much. Can you help. PLEASE.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

Answers

Shane,

See the response to this same question on this forum located at URL:

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-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

I am doing a report on poe's "the tell-tale heart" currently at my college. I believe that the narrator (being that he constantly insists that he is not mad or insane) actually sees his madness in the eye of the "old man" and can not stand it. Something in the "evil eye" brings out his internal madness, and he feels that he must take action to destroy it; unfortunately, he ends up more damned than he was to begin with. A fair warning I have recieved and will pass on to you: any attempt to interperet Poe's work (especially psychologically) will undoubtedly make the work collapse in on itself in extreme boredom and simplicity! Good luck!

-- Anonymous, October 26, 2000

If you look at the theory of Doppelganger, the "evil eye" is symbolic of Poe's "Evil I." The old man's eye is a part of the narrator's own character that he despises and wishes to destroy.

-- Anonymous, November 02, 2001

Shane, In Poe's works one can intrepret just about anything. I have taught this as one of the short stories I have selected for the short story unit I do in my classroom. There have been lost of intrepretations on this "vulture" eye. I feel the eye is an infliction that the narrator sees as one of his own inflictions that constantly eat at him. He is attempting to rid the old man of his eye in order to rid himself of his own unstableness. He knows something is not right, but feels it will be done away with if he rids himself of the old man. In reality it only puts him over the edge of his own insanity. Anyway that's my opinion. KW

-- Anonymous, January 28, 2002