The point of view used in this story is first-person objective. This means that the narrator is a participant in the story's events and that he is narrating these events after they have already taken place. This perspective is effective because the narrator believes that he is perfectly sane and not mad at all, but readers begin to put together clues to the contrary; his repeated denial of madness heightens the tension of the story and makes it more exciting.
One detail that makes it clear that this narrator is unreliable comes in the very first paragraph. He talks about how good his ability to hear is, saying, "I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell." Anyone who thinks that they can hear everything in heaven and on earth and even some of the things in hell is surely not playing with a full deck. Further, the narrator's motive for killing the old man—who he claims to love!—is the old man's "vulture" eye. There may be some good reasons to kill a person but the appearance of their eye is certainly not one of them. The fact that he is so bothered by the eye is another clue that he is not sane. Likewise, the fact that he claims to sit awake "night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall," and his obsession with death, provide more evidence.
Ultimately, the narrator does not commit the perfect crime because his own conscience trips him up. The heart that he hears beating, sounding like a "watch [. . .] when enveloped in cotton," is his own, hammering away because of his adrenaline. He grows paranoid that the police officers are taunting him, that they know of his crime, when really, it is his own conscience that compels him to reveal himself as the killer.
"The Tell-tale Heart" is told from the point of view of the killer. This point of view is particularly effective because it allows Poe (and the reader) to get inside the head of a madman as he tries to justify an irrational murder. The story, which is already creepy, is made even more so by being told by someone so unstable. Some details that identify the speaker as unreliable are the following:
He repeatedly insists he is sane, but his ideas and actions seem completely irrational. For example, he believes, with no rational basis, that the old man has an "evil eye." The speaker also believes that his own hearing is very acute and that he can hear other people's hearts beating. However, it would appear that this a delusion or a figment of his imagination. We also know that he deceives the old man by greeting him in a "hearty tone" every morning and asking him how he passed the night. This would suggest that speaker is capable of lying—he obviously does not mention that he has been spying on the old man. He manages to deceive the police, as well, until his guilt overcomes him.
We know very little about the old man except that he lives in the same house with the speaker and has his own bedroom. He is terrified one night when he hears the narrator in his bedroom. Otherwise, we have no knowledge about him or any reason to believe he should be feared. The narrator doesn't seem to perceive the old man as fully human.
The speaker is motivated to kill the old man, he says, because he has the eye of a vulture. The speaker states it is not the old man he wants to kill, but his evil eye. He looks in on the old man every night, wanting to murder him, but he can't, because the old man's eyes are closed. One night, however, after having disturbed and frightened the old man, he shines the light of the lantern in his room, as he does every night. This time, it falls on the old man's open eye, and the speaker can hear the old man's heart beating loudly, so he kills him.
The narrator's own guilty feelings trip him up. Although he has declared the old man "stone dead" and has buried him beneath the floorboards, the speaker believes, after the police come, that he hears the beating of the old man's heart. It seems to get louder and louder, until he believes the police are mocking him by pretending not to hear it. Therefore, he confesses his crime:
"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! —tear up the planks! here, here!"
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