Final answer:
In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the police discover the murder after the narrator confesses due to a psychological breakdown from guilt. The narrator hears a sound he interprets as the dead man's heart, leading to his confession and the police's discovery of the crime.
Step-by-step explanation:
In Edgar Allan Poe's “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the police discover the murder at the end of the story not because they find evidence themselves, but because the narrator, driven by overwhelming guilt, confesses. The claim here is that the narrator's own conscience leads to his downfall. For evidence, the text describes the narrator hearing a persistent ringing sound, which he believes to be the beating of the old man's heart, although it is likely a manifestation of his guilt. This unbearable sound drives him to admit his crime to the police.
This evidence supports the claim because it shows the psychological breakdown of the narrator. His guilt is the reason for his confession, which is the direct cause of the police discovering the murder. The story powerfully demonstrates that sometimes the evidence of a crime is not physical but psychological, and that an individual's conscience can be the catalyst for revealing the truth. Psychological breakdown, guilt, and confession are central to understanding how the murder was discovered by the police in “The Tell-Tale Heart.”