In "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe, what does the beating heart that the narrator hears symbolize?

power

guilt

survival

deception

B. Guilt

In Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Tell-Tale Heart," the beating of the heart that narrator hears is symbolic for the guilt the narrator feels for having murdered the old man. Evidence of his guilt is presented early in the short story by how the narrator tells us that he "had to do it" as if he had no other choice, which seems to be a sort of defense mechanism to make himself feel better about killing the old man. Finally, it is within the presence of the police that the beating heart only he hears is what makes him confess to the crime because it was getting too great for him to bear any longer.