Symbolism

The eye of the old man is not real, in the short story is says it has a “film over it”. This could mean that the old man had a medical problem with his eye or something else happened to it.  A human eye sees all, processes images, and analyses the surroundings.  The eye is also regarded to as “evil” and “vulture”. Without the ability to see out of one eye the old man has lost the vision of what is happening with his surroundings.  The narrator has a mind set of murder, although the old man can't see through it, the narrator senses the other “eye” reads his every move. This leads into another theme, which is the heart, because when the eye senses something is wrong the heart will beat. When the narrator opens the door at night and the light is shown upon his bed, the real eye does not see it, but the other picks up on it and the heart beats to alert the old man. This idea is shown again when the narrator kills the old man and buries him under the floorboards. The heart is beating and making a sound that is killing the narrator. “Yet the sound increased --and what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound --much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath --and yet the officers heard it not.” The heart is beating and causing the sounds to alert the police about what has happened. However, the narrator is the only one to hear it. The narrator soon can’t take it anymore and gives himself up and tells them where the body is. These two major symbols work hand in hand guiding the story.