Wassup my well-read ballas?
This week we're getting insane in the membrane with the Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe.
The narrator of this story definitely one tweaked-out gangsta.
Not only is he always talkin like he just popped 17 Adderalls,
but this dude just killed an old man fo’ no good reason!
We'll get to that later.
Our boy livin with an old man who ain’t never done him dirty or nothing
But there’s somethin bout dis geezer that he just can’t shake: His fugly-ass blue eye. Brutha like,
“Look, I love this dude, but that damn eye is ughhhhh. This fool got to go."
Completely normal, amirite? Well, according to the narrator, the fact that he can always keep his cool,
whether he icin a brutha or just talkin about it, mean there ain’t no way he cray in da head.
For seven straight nights he creep on that old man while he sleepin so he can smoke him.
But don’t be thinkin that he was too scared to do it the first time –
problem was da man’s evil-ass eye was shut every time he came in, so the narrator didn’t do nuthin.
On the eighth night, things go ham. His nuts swell to the size of watermelons, and he's all like,
“time to stop f**kin’ around. Let’s do this sh*t."
Cept he f**ks up da entrance and makin da geezer call out, “Who dat? Who's there?”
and opens up his freaky deaky eye. With the sound of the old man’s heart
bangin through his ears, the narrator seen that eye, gets all riled up, and mercs dat fool.
Cold-blooded.
After choppin him up and hidin da body parts under the flo – even mo cold-blooded –
the 5-0 roll in cuz somebody heard some screaming.
The narrator playin it real cool til he think he hears the old man’s heart beatin. Da fuzz don't hear nuttin tho.
That heartbeat gets louder and louder and be doggin him so raw that he breaks down,
straight loses his shit, and fesses up to the popo.
Peep this irony, playbizzle:
The narrator start goin off tryin to defend himself like he bein accused of doin some crazy sh*t.
Thing is, it ain’t murder he freakin out about.
He flippin out cuz folks callin him crazy even though he think he normal as they come.
And hows he gonna prove that to us? By confessing to a murder like it ain’t no thang.
Nice. Good job.
Our boy’s defense don’t get no better after we find out the only reason he hatin
is cuz ol’ crusty crust got an “Evil Eye" – whatever the hell that is.
Some peeps think that eye is a symbol for self-knowledge – that the old dude’s eye is just a reminder
to the narrator bout all the wackness he got inside himself.
Other scholars gettin their Freud on and say that the narrator icin this bruh
to show that he got power over a father figure.
One of my favorites, though, is a feminist reading where some folks point out that the narrator
could be a woman. She just so damn tired of bein objectified by a privileged old white dude
that she gonna put dat sucka in his place.
STREET JUSTICE.
Dat beatin heart got all sorts of interpretations too.
Maybe it’s supernatural, and we got some creepy ghost sh*t goin on up in here.
Maybe it’s all in da narrator’s head and just further shows that there’s somethin dark and nasty inside him.
Then again, maybe he's actually hearin somethin, and it’s just a bunch of bugs gettin their freak nasty on.
When the narrator drops in the old man’s room, he talks about sittin up listenin to things called “Death Watches."
What’s a death watch? A G named Thompson lay it down real nice for us:
"Two or more species of beetles that gnaw in walls and old furniture.
During their mating season, they signal by bumping their heads against solid objects,
the sound of which superstitiously came to be called the 'death watch,'
foretelling the death of someone in the house... contemporary descriptions of the rhythmic sounds
of these beetles...seem to match the rhythms of one's own pulse."
I guess if I had to listen to a bunch of bugs goin at it all night erry night, I’d go pretty crazy too.
Ughhh.
And speaking of crazy, you’d be damn insane not to check out the Thug Notes store
and cop some of my sweet swag. See y’all next week, my well-read ballas.
Sparky Sweets out. Peace!