The short story can produce many different types of characters. Usually, these characters are faced with situations that give us an insight into their true character. In the "Tell Tale Heart", a short story written by Edgar Allen Poe, the narrator of the story is faced with a fear. He is afraid of the Old Man's Eye. The actions that this narrator performs in order to crush his fear can lead others to believe that he suffers from some sort of mental illness.
The very fact that this narrator is so repulsed by the old man's eye, which he refers to as the evil eye, is reason enough to be suspicious of his character. The narrator has an inner struggle with the thought that the evil eye is watching him and an underlying feeling that the evil eye will see the real person that he has become.
Microsoft Narrator
The "Japanese" narrator of My Japan.
Microsoft NarratorThis paranoia leads the narrator to believe that the only way he can put down his fears is to kill the old man.
It is said that denial is usually the sign of a problem. If this holds true, then the narrator has the characteristics of a madman. In the first paragraph, he asks, but why will you say that I am mad! (174) This statement can be looked upon as a statement made by someone going through a paranoid episode. He talks as if he is in frenzy, especially when he talks about hearing things in heaven and in hell. The disease had sharpened my senses...Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven...I heard many things in hell. (174) The disease that the narrator is talking about eats away at his conscience until [I] made up my mind to take the...