Analysis of Poe's "A Tell Tale Heart" Edgar Allen Poe's story "A Tell Tale Heart," has the protagonist obsessed with an old man's eye. This obsession causes a conflict between the protagonist and his sanity. This eye eventually drove him t commit murder to rid the eye. The narrator's conflict increases as he plots the murder, commits the murder and finally after the murder. This eye is a very obsessive eye. It has the capability to drive an ordinary person to insanity, which is what happens to the protagonist. It is not the old man that the he is obsessed with, it is the old man's one eye. The protagonist's obsession is because of the eye's look