The Heart That Talked Too Much

 

       What’s stopping you from committing the perfect murder? The idea of murder is not for the sane, the meticulous planning before and after the act is not for the complacent, and the disposal of the corpse is not meant for the weak hearted. But what happens if you do all these three perfectly, yet give yourself up to the cuffs at the home stretch? There we have The Tell-Tale Heart, Poe’s ever sinister short story.

     

     A man convinced that he is not mad takes us through his journey of the act of murder of an old man and its aftermath. The motive is simple, he just cannot bear the sight of his pale blue eye with the film on it. He proudly explains the patient and dedicated planning with scrupulous attention to detail. The joy of the murder and the ease of his cause of pain explained by the murderer makes the reader truly question his sanity which he was desperately trying to prove in his first entrance.

 

      Now what went wrong? Even with a relatively quiet death, and a clean disposal of a dismembered corpse under the floorboards, the deed was far yet from complete. The three cops who were called in for a disturbance was the last hurdle. Clean rooms, no evidence of murder and a composed mind of the murderer is enough to get through this. Right? Perhaps he was too composed, but the heart of the corpse was beating louder and louder, so loud that he couldn’t bear it. Eventually, pulling the floorboards, he shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed!"

 

     Reading the story, it reminded me almost immediately of the interrogation scene from the film, American Psycho (2000). Here Detective Donald Kimball conducts an unofficial investigation on Patrick Bateman for the murder of Paul Allen, which he was guilty of. The director has brilliantly filmed three versions of the same scene, one where the detective is unsuspicious of him, one where he is slightly suspicious and the third one where he is convinced that Patrick is the murderer. It is stitched together so that the audience is always guessing about the extend to which the detective knows the truth. A similar anxiety can be seen here.

 

       Perhaps one could never use rationality to justify what happened here. Was the same madness that made him commit the act lead to this mishap? What was so repulsive about an eye that could lead to murder? And how could a heart beat ever so loud, unless it were just the imagination of the murderer?

 

      Macbeth would have felt a similar fear as he saw the ghost of Banquo after ordering his death. It led to himself almost giving away his guilt to his courtiers. Was it subconscious guilt personified? Why do we even have one?

 

       Reading the story is an amazing experience even today and I could only imagine the shock of the audience back then, in an era where violence and gore wasn’t something they would view with popcorn and ice cream. If you’re lazy to read, just watch Hitchcock films. Its almost a screenplay adaptation of Poe’s works.

 

Let me know if you’d like a review on any Hitchcock films. Murder is on the table!

Until next time…

Lan