Which theme is conveyed in the excerpt from " The tell-tale heart" by edgar allen poetry?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. "the tell-tale heart," edgar allan poe how can a reader tell that the passage's narrator is unreliable? the narrator claims that he is very intelligent, but he is clearly very young and naive. the narrator insists that he can speak calmly, but his manner of speaking suggests that he is not at all calm. the narrator says that he is a good listener, but he refuses to listen to anyone else's version of the story.