• Is the narrator male or female?
• In the story, the narrator wants to kill the old man because of his eye.  Why?  Why does he also seem to take great pleasure in his slow entrance into the old man's room?
• In class, we have two interpretations:

  • Jenny Chang thinks that the room represents the narrator's unconscious, and the old man's blind eye, a sign of castration by which the narrator is repulsed by.  The narrator fears castration, so he wants to kill the old man who represents his fear or a castrated man.
  • Kate Liu thinks that there is a simultaneous attraction and repulsion  because the narrator identifies with the old man as a father/authority figure but also wants to attack the latter.

"The belief in the evil eye dates back to ancient times, and even today, is fairly common in India and the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea. References are made to it in Jewish, Islamic, Buddist and Hindu faiths. The belief centers around the idea that those who possess the evil eye have the power to harm people or their possessions by merely looking at them. Wherever this belief exists, it is common to assign the evil eye as the cause of unexplainable illnesses and misfortunes of any kind.

              To protect oneself from the power of the eye, certain measures can be taken. In Muslim areas, the color blue is painted on the shutters of the houses, and found on beads worn by both children and animals. There is also a specific hand gesture named the "Hand of Fatima," named after the daughter of Mohammed. This name is also given to an amulet in the shape of hand that is worn around the neck for protection. In some locations, certain phrases, such as " as God will" or "God bless it" are uttered to protect the individual from harm. In extreme cases, the eye, whether voluntarily or not, must be destroyed. One Slavic folktale relates the story of the father who blinded himself for fear of harming his own
children with his evil eye. "(From "The Tell-Tale Heart" page in The Poe Decoder)

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