as also a short story published in 1843. The story is told in the first-person by the killer himself, who has been locked up in either an insane asylum or a prison for the crime he committed. He begins by arguing that he is not insane and that the way the he killed the old man was the sensible way to do it. He explains to the reader that he loved the old man, but not his “evil eye.” He says that when the eye fell on him, his blood ran cold, so he decided to kill the man and rid himself of the eye forever. So the narrator kills the old man, dismembers all of his body parts in the bathtub, and sticks the remains under the floorboards. Afterwards, the police come to check on a scream that has been reported to them. The narrator explains that he keeps hearing the old mans heart beating, but in reality, it is his own. By the end of the story, the narrator gives himself away to the police, which were sitting right on top of the floorboards where the body was hidden. The madness of the narrator in this story is similar to the madness of other Poe characters who long to escape the curse of time and morality but find they can do so only by a corresponding loss of the self – a goal they both seek with eagerness and try to avoid with terror (Magill 1648).Poe had developed short-fiction as a genre that ended up having a major impact on American Literature and publishing throughout the 19th century (Magill 1810). His stories and criticism have been models and guides for writers in this characteristically American genre up to the present time (Magill 1810). The evidence in this report made me come to the conclusion that Edgar Allen Poe is the father of the short story form. ...
