I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees -- very gradually -- I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts.
The Doppelgänger Technique in The Tell-Tale Heart.
Creating a doppelganger demands splitting one's "self " into two distinct "selves ". One will be the rational, logical thinker, represented by the consciousness and the other one will be a ghostly being, overtaken by the powers of the subconscious. Many critics consider Poe the founder of the so called doppelganger technique, in literature. What does this technique involve? It is basically a twin or a double of the protagonist in the person of the antagonist (and vice versa). In The Tell-Tale Heart the protagonist is represented by the narrator, (the murderer), his doppelganger being the old man, whom he kills. A deeper analysis of the story could easily reveal that in fact the protagonist and the antagonist are one and the same. This aspect is also underlined by the given examples. The narrator seems to be aware of the emotions of the old man in such extent that his entire existence couldn't be more than a rotten trick of the killer's imagination.
Yet another evidence for the presence of the doppelganger is the in crescendo anxiety that gradually overwhelms the narrator's entire being, when talking to the police. The fact that he constantly hears the tormenting pulsation of the old man's heart, when no one else seems to hear it, only makes his insanity more obvious not only to the reader but also to the mysterious person that is listening to his tale.
Paradoxically the narrator states that he does not have any problems with the old man and he even claims that he doesn't want his gold or treasures.
