He then opens his lantern and allows the light to fall upon his master’s face and highlight the eye. He waits until the night the Evil Eye is open to commit his awful deed. On that night, he awakens his master, and the man waits at the door. The old man sits up awake and alert that someone is in his room. The man then claims he hears his master’s heart beating. As he listens it quickens in pace and escalates in volume. The heartbeat grows so loud that he becomes afraid a neighbor may hear it. This portion of the story adds doubts to the narrator’s sanity, because he is sure that everyone else is capable of hearing this booming heart beat. With fear that someone would hear this imagined noise, the man is finally ready to kill the old man, and he opens the lantern and lets the light fall onto the Evil Eye. Once he sees it, he is filled with such rage that he throws the old man on the ground and pushes the bed on top of him. The “heart beat, now smothered by the bed, slows until the old man is surely dead. The murderer decided to hack the body into separate pieces and distribute them under the floorboards in the old man’s room. Shortly after the disposal of the body, the police come knocking at the door inquiring about a shriek heard by neighbors. The man takes blame for it, and says his master is away when questioned. The police search the house and turn up nothing. The murderer is so sure of his work done with hiding the body that he invites the officers to chat in the room that has the body hidden below them. Once again, the man’s sanity is questioned when he thinks he is hearing the heart beat again. While he is sure the noise is incredibly around and he is raving and smashing stuff, this is all going on in his head. “It grew louder-louder-louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not?” (Poe 177) Eventually the man stands up...
