Some people are superstitious because they believe in some type of spirituality or they feel that there are supernatural forces that interact with the natural world.
Some people are superstitious because they believe that certain acts, thoughts, or behaviors will have certain outcomes. Carrying a rabbits foot is said to be good luck. Walking under a ladder is said to be bad luck. These are superstitious beliefs.
In many cases, people embrace superstitions because they are searching for meaning or causes of events that they can not explain. If someone is sad or afraid, and he can not uncover the cause of this fear in his own mind, he might blame some external thing.
The narrator in "The Tell-Tale Heart" is insane. He actually tries to prove that his mental imbalance has made his mind sharper. In his neurosis, he has convinced himself that the old man's eye is evil. The narrator has projected his own insanity to this old man's eye " . . . for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye." The narrator is unwilling or unable to admit that his anxiety and fear is in his own mind. Since he can not find the cause of this anxiety in himself, he projects it onto the old man's "Evil eye." He believes that the man's eye is some supernatural force meant to torture him. This is pure superstition.
Poe uses a clever pun on "eye" and "I." The narrator projects his anxiety onto the old man's "eye." But his anxiety and fear comes from his own mind; thus, from the narrator's own perspective, it comes from "I."
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