Is the first person narrator trustworthy as he gives his account of the events in the tell tale heart

answer:

i don't think so, because:

our narrator is such a wreck, it's hard not to feel sorry for him. he's nervous ("very dreadfully nervous"), paranoid, and physically and mentally ill. he doesn't know the difference between the "real" and the "unreal," and seems to be completely alone and friendless in the world. we suspect that he rarely sleeps.

oh yeah: and he's also a murderer.

maybe this explains why he doesn't share his name, or any other identifying characteristics. he wants us to know what he did, but not where to find him. we actually have precious little to go on in discussing his character, and we have to do lots of investigation and reading between the lines to come up with possibilities.

before we explore some of those possibilities, we should clear up a fine point. poe doesn't explicitly tell us if the narrator is male or female. the only reason we feel comfortable calling the narrator "he" is these lines: "you fancy me mad. madmen know nothing" (3) (our italics). this isn't one hundred percent proof that the narrator is male, so it's important to consider the possibility that the narrator is , for now, we are clinging to those lines to get out of having to use the awkward "he/she."

the answer:

in the first part of the story running is all that matters to squeaky. running gives her confidence and defines who she is. at the beginning of the story she says that other kids call her mercury because she runs very fast. in the text she refers to herself as "miss quicksilver".

the line that provides the best evidence that squeaky has self-confidence is

" and i continue with my breathing exercise, strolling down broadway toward the ice cream man on 145th with not a care in the world cause i am miss quicksilver herself".

this labor, by slow prudence to make mild.   c. ability to govern well