Throughout the story, the narrator tries to convince the reader that he is not "crazy", but in fact very intelligent. He states: “illness had sharpened my senses – it had not destroyed them” (Poe 1127), then goes on to say: “fools know nothing. But you should have appeared to me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded” (Poe 1127). The killer wants to be seen as wise and intelligent when in reality he is crazy. Due to his mental instability and contradictory actions, he proves to be an unreliable narrator. The reasons given by the narrator for killing the old man make no sense, thus reinforcing the idea of ​​a mad man. The narrator says, “It is impossible to say how the idea entered my brain” (Poe 1127), although he does not know where the idea to murder this man came from. He also says: “I loved the old man. He never wronged me. (Poe 1127) there was no motivation for revenge. The narrator eliminates another possible motive by saying, “I had no desire for his gold” (Poe 1127), so all the practical reasons for murdering someone did not motivate him to kill. The physical appearance of the man's pale blue eye is what drove the narrator to kill, which calls into question the narrator's mental state.