The moral of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart is that guilt can consume a person’s mind and lead to their downfall. The story revolves around a narrator who tries to convince the reader of his sanity while describing how he murdered an old man. Despite his efforts to appear calm and rational, his guilt manifests in the form of a hallucination—the sound of the old man’s heart beating beneath the floorboards. This overwhelming guilt ultimately drives him to confess his crime.
The story serves as a cautionary tale about the destructive power of guilt and the inability to escape one’s conscience. It highlights how inner turmoil can lead to self-destruction, even when external evidence of wrongdoing is hidden. The narrator’s descent into madness underscores the idea that the mind can be its own worst enemy, and that true peace is impossible when burdened by guilt.