Not mad, just nervous

Let’s take a closer look at the opening sentence of the story. At its most simple level, the narrator is expressing two ideas.

True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?

The Tell-Tale Heart(1843)

Why didn’t Poe just write, “I am nervous, but I am not mad?” If it’s that simple, why did Poe write so much more elaborately?

There is a lot going on. To figure it out, we’re going to break this sentence into halves.

In the first half, let’s start by look at the quality at the heart of the statement.

True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?

The Tell-Tale Heart(1843)

There’s really only one quality here: nervous. But that quality is repeated twice, it has a describer and that describer is intensified twice.

How would you describe the effect of these language features?

These features make the narrator’s statement much more intense—to the extent that we wonder if he really is crazy:

Repeating “nervous” adds intensity
Using “very” adds more intensity
And then repeating “very” adds even more intensity
“Dreadfully” is an intense describer

But notice that the effect is a particular type of intensity. The strong words are a little overwrought, and the repetition seems kind of compulsive, like the narrator isn’t entirely in control of his own impulses, which is part of what makes us think he might be crazy.

The opening of The Tell-Tale Heart

Not mad, just nervous