This does not coincide with the actual Salem murder where fortune was the ultimate motive for the crime (Wagner). Poe did indeed need help with his finances during his lifetime, but he is it making it clear that the narrator's actions are not about monetary gain but for the reader to focus on the relationship of the two main characters. These points are clear in the narrator's character dialogue within the second passage of “The Tell-Tale Heart”, "I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire"
This does not coincide with the actual Salem murder where fortune was the ultimate motive for the crime (Wagner). Poe did indeed need help with his finances during his lifetime, but he is it making it clear that the narrator's actions are not about monetary gain but for the reader to focus on the relationship of the two main characters. These points are clear in the narrator's character dialogue within the second passage of “The Tell-Tale Heart”, "I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire"