In Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Tell Tale Heart", the narrator of the story kills an old man because of the man's "evil eye." After that, the narrator chops up the corpse into parts and hid it under three wooden planks. The narrator is visited by several police officers and the narrator confesses that he killed the man after taking the police officers into the chamber of the old man. This story is completely in the view of the narrator. I believe that this narrator is either insane or dreaming.
Let us say that the narrator is insane. the narrator is very watchful that during the week before he murders the old man, he stays up every night to kill the man but he withdraws every night. It is said that he finally kills him on the eighth night. The narrator is insane already, and he is then deprived of sleep for a whole week; enough to make anyone go "insane." After the murder, he claims to have heard the old man's heart beating under the floor boards. If a person is dead, their heart will not beat. The narrator must be insane but there is another possibility. It might be possible that nothing even happened on the eighth night and he probably dreamed of killing the old man instead of actually proceeding to the old man's chamber for the execution.
After not sleeping for seven nights, the narrator is probably extremely tired and fatigue. I highly doubt he would still have the strength to last another nothing and yet kill the old man by lifting up a heavy mattress and suffocating the old man. Though, it would be possible if he were dreaming of the murder.
Well, it is very likely that the narrator could be dreaming about murdering the old man because I agree with you that if he have stayed up for a week, he would not have the strength to lift up a heavy mattress. On the other hand, if the narrator is insane, could it also mean that he was insane from the beginning and this whole account is a manifestation of his imagination?
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