At the end of the narrative, the narrator gives in to the pressure in his mind and reveals the whereabouts of the dead old man. By saying, "it is the beating of his hideous heart," the narrator is referring to the heart of the dead old man. The narrator hears the heartbeats which apparently, are coming from the heart of a dead person, properly dissembled and concealed under the wooden floor. At this particular point, one may conclude that the narrator must be mentally unstable. A normal person would not be in a position to hear the sound made by dead people (or bodies). Close to the end of the narrative, the narrator, under pressure, is forced into acting and sounding quite madly. The sounds in the head of the narrator push the narrator to act weirdly, moving up and down the rooms, constantly talking by himself (or herself) and throwing chairs all over.
Poe’s sublime refers to the style of writing inherited from the Kantian sublime. Many of Poe’s tales come in the form of complex psychological problems, in which mentally disturbed characters find themselves in public or urban encounters. This aspect is also seen in the narrative, ‘The Tell-Tale Heart.'
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The narrator in the story is taken to be a male person as one goes through the story. This is because males are associated with violent acts more often than females. The activity undertaken by the narrator in killing the old man, dissembling the body parts and carefully concealing the corpse gives the impression that the narrator must be a man. Some critiques have come to say that the narrator is a woman. This opinion alters how people understand the whole story. In the beginning, for instance, the narrator says he (or she) liked the old man. Each time the old man looked at the narrator, the narrator felt chills. If the narrator were a woman, then people would understand this part differently. The narrator, consequently killed the old man so that she (or he) could no longer feel the chills each time the old man looked at her (or him).
