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Why does the narrator in "The Tell-Tale Heart" place his chair over the old man's burial spot when the police arrive?
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The narrator in "The Tell-Tale Heart" places his chair over the old man's burial spot to exhibit his hubris and confidence in evading detection by the police. This act of "wild audacity" and "perfect triumph" reflects his overconfidence, as he believes the officers will not suspect him despite sitting directly above the hidden corpse. However, his arrogance ultimately leads to his downfall, as it contributes to his overwhelming guilt and eventual confession.
The mentally-unstable, unreliable narrator mentions that after he suffocated the old man, he proceeded to dismember his body in the bathtub, before removing three planks and placing the old man's remains underneath the floorboards. When the police arrive after receiving a call from a concerned neighbor, who had heard a shriek in the middle of the night, the confident narrator shows the officers through the house and feels certain that they will not discover any evidence of his crime.
In a display of hubris , the narrator invites the officers to sit in the old man's room and places his chair directly above the old man's remains. The narrator mentions that he placed his chair above the spot of the victim's corpse with "wild audacity" and in "perfect triumph." This indicates that he purposely chose the location above the corpse because he is extremely confident and arrogant. He feels that...
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the officers would never suspect him to sit above the remains and carry on a casual conversation.
Why does the narrator place his chair over the old man's burial spot?
This is a perfect example of hubris, a concept from ancient Greece. It is a character trait of extremely confident people - overconfident people in fact - that often leads to their downfall, as is the case in The Tell-Tale Heart. A direct quote from the story for why the narrator places his chair over the burial place of the old man is, "while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim." This is a perfect example of hubris: in his overconfidence in this situation, he is basically taunting the police - he is practically telling them where the body is, so they must be stupid if they could not figure it out, which meant that he was smarter than them. Unfortunately, this overconfidence leads to his own overwhelming guilt, which leads him to confessing his crime. Had he just remained humble and not taunted the police, he could possibly have gotten away with it.