It is through the following paragraphs that Poe details both the narrator's paranoia and plots as he creeps into the old man's room each night (Dern 53). Proclaiming that it is because of the old man's eye that should have been destroyed. Here Poe repeatedly uses conjunctions to give the story a more serious tone and adding emphasis on the eye rather than the old man (Dern 57). Ah! a madman would have been so wise, and then, when my head was well immersed in the room, I opened the lantern carefully - oh, so carefully - carefully (for the hinges creaked) - I opened it so wide that only one thin ray fell on the eye. And so I did for seven long nights, every night after midnight, but I found my eye always closed; and therefore it was impossible for me to do the work; for it was not the old man that tormented me, but his evil eye (Poe 2283). Rather than believing he is a murderer, the narrator sees himself as someone who defends others from the evil eye, and not the old man. His illness allowed the narrator to see them as two separate entities (Dern58). According to the narrator he is sane as he is able to communicate his story with the listener and this is what the narrator believes restores his humanity (Dern