Edgar Allen Poe was known for writing very intricate and detailed horror poems. He is known all over the world for his work. In some of these poems, however, the narrators aren’t always reliable. The reliability of the narrators in a poem can change the way the poem is interpreted. There is evidence that both the narrators in Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” and “The Tell- Tale Heart” are unreliable.
In Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven”, there are many pieces of evidence that can lead the audience to believe that the narrator is unreliable. For example, in the beginning of the poem, the author suggests to us that he was not awake during his encounter with the raven. “While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping” (Poe 1). This quote tells the audience that the narrator was falling asleep just before the raven appeared to him. This suggests that the narrator fell asleep without realizing he did, and therefore dreamt of the raven out of grief for his lost Lenore. This could explain why odd things happen that the narrator cannot explain. “Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore” (Poe 2). The narrator is confused and cannot explain why the raven is speaking to him. Since the narrator may be asleep during this encounter, this explains the raven’s ability to speak, thus making the narrator an unreliable one because the story of the raven is not real and did not happen in the narrator’s reality.
In Edgar Allen Poe’s poem, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the audience is given specific evidence to suggest that the narrator is unreliable. “The Tell-Tale Heart” is about a man who is haunted in his everyday life by an old man’s “evil eye.” The man then plans to kill the old man, not over hatred for the old man, but because he no longer wants to be haunted by the old man’s evil eye. In the beginning of the poem, the narrator speaks to the audience in a way that suggests that he is unreliable. “But why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses–not destroyed–not dulled them” (Poe 1). The narrator is trying to justify this “disease,” suggesting that it could’ve had a negative affect on his mental health. If the narrator has a mental health disorder, then he is considered unreliable.
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Although there are many pieces of evidence that suggest that the narrators in both “The Raven” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” are unreliable, there is also evidence supporting the idea that they are, indeed, reliable narrators. For example, in “The Raven,” the narrator is able to tell the story in full detail, describing exactly what he saw and what he said. “Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December” (Poe 1). The narrator is able to recall details that a person might not remember from a dream. This suggests that the narrator is actually reliable. Similarly, the narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” proves that he is reliable by telling the story calmly. “Hearken! and observe how healthily–how calmly I can tell you the whole story” (Poe 1). The narrator tries to prove that he is a reliable narrator by telling the story calmly, which leads the audience to believe that he is reliable. Since he can tell it normally, this suggests that he doesn’t have a mental illness, making his story true.
