In his essay "On the Nature of Man", Lavater sets out his opinion that "there is an intimate correlation between the internal spiritual essence of man and his constituent physical parts” (Lavater 98). Humans go through life trusting that their eyes are slow towards the outside world, without understanding the very fact that their eyes reflect the inside more than the outside. Many literary works discuss this physical-psychological connection, but none are as perfect and profound as Edgar Allan Poe. In his story “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Poe piles up perversity, madness, paranoia, and self-destruction to play on the pun “Eye.” The narrator uses this play on words to embody all the symptoms of psychological disorder both in the projection of his wickedness and in the discordance of his physiognomy. To begin with, the narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart" projects his evil onto the old man which raises the primary question: is it the old man's "evil eye" that bothers the narrator or is it his/her own "self" that he/she fears to encounter? The narrator states from the beginning that "a vulture's eye, a pale blue eye, with a film over it" (Poe 317) is the main reason he kills the old man. In that eye that “cools the marrow in [his] bones” (Poe 319) lies the superb power of wickedness that is actually hidden in the veiled psyche of the narrator. Robinson In his article "Poe's 'The Tell Tale Heart'" reconceptualizes the link between "the eye" and the "I" by saying that "it is the narrator's evil 'I' that makes him see the evil eye in the old man" ( 377). However, throughout the story, there is no indication in the old man's statements or actions for the vice. On the contrary, the dissimulation and hypocrisy of the narrative... middle of paper... ridan. London: Hogarth P and Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1977. Print.Lavater, JC Essays on Physiognomy. London: Johnson, 1789. Print.Jug, Edward. “The Physiognomic Significance of Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Hear'.” Studies in Fiction 16.3 (1979): 231-233. Premier of academic research. Network. September 10, 2011.Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Tell-Tale Heart." The Selected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. GR Thompson. Indiana: Purdue University, 2004.317-320. Print.Robinson, E. Arthur. "Poe's 'The Tell Tale Heart'". Nineteenth-Century Fiction 19.4 (1965): 369-378. Print.The Holy Bible. Revised standard version. New York: New American Library, 1962. Print. Wing-chi Ki, Magdalen. Ego-Evil and 'The Tell Tale Heart.'" Renascence 61.1 (2008): 25-38. Academic Search Premier. Web. September 11. 2011.