The story starts in a house belonging to the narrator who is confessing his nervousness but claiming he’s not mad. He says that for the past seven nights he’s been planning to kill an old man at his house, as he watches the man sleep. He claims that he never had any negative feelings toward the man and the reason he decided to kill him was the old mans eye. “One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture--a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees”. On the eighth night as the narrator pries open the door to observe the man he makes a mistake and after much waiting he finally kills the man. Near the end of the story, police come to the narrators house. As they question him he begins hearing a mysterious sound which eventually drives him so mad he shows the police the body.

Fear can change people in many ways. In the case of The Tell-Tale Heart it drove the protagonist mad. Reading the story I almost wanted to sympathize with the protagonist despite his actions. In the exposition, the narrators desperate grasp for any proof of his sanity made me feel vulnerable. Even though his fight for proof exposed himself as the insane monster he claimed not to be I still felt bad for him. I felt that I could relate to the narrators panic as he struggled with the possibility that he could have lost control of himself 

Although The Tell-Tale Heart shows a situation in which fear controls the narrator, you can control your fear. You can use manipulate it to drive yourself to do better, to work harder and most importantly, find happiness.