Read the excerpt from "The Tell-Tale Heart."
TRUE!-nervous-very, very dreadfully nervous I had
been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The
disease had sharpened my senses-not destroyed-
not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing
acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth.
I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad?
Hearken! and observe how healthily-how calmly I can
tell you the whole story.
Which statement best explains how the reader can
determine that the narrator of this passage is
unreliable?
O The narrator is very calm as he begins to relate all of
the events of the story.
O The narrator worries that his dreadful nervousness
has caused him to go mad.
The narrator says he is not mad, but he claims he
can hear all the sounds on heaven and earth.
O The narrator has sharpened senses that allow him
to hear sounds that others cannot.