Madness
Poe describes the journey of the murderer from the first conception of the idea, to carrying out the murder. He does so with such detail it is disturbing, suggesting that the narrator has committed some terrible action. The eagerness and the "longing" of the narrator are emphasized. For example: "That single thought is enough. The impulse increases to a wish, the wish to a desire, the desire to an uncontrollable longing." Although at this point we don't know that the narrator is a murderer, it is clear he is talking about something personal.
Later, the narrator describes the murder he committed with a disturbing lack of emotion. He then describes how he descended into madness, due to the knowledge that he shouldn't tell people about his crimes, but the paradoxical desire to do so. He describes walking down the street and feeling "a maddening desire to shriek aloud," before "bounding like a madman through the crowded thoroughfares" and then confesses to the murder.
Fire imagery
Poe uses fire imagery in the following passage: "We glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence the work with the anticipation of whose glorious result our whole souls are on fire." The fire imagery used here tells us that the narrator understands his actions are immoral, as fire is associated with hell. Additionally, the fire could represent the narrator's enthusiasm and eagerness to carry out his "duty."
The Imp of the Perverse
The narrator argues that he is one of the "many uncounted victims of the Imp of the Perverse", which he describes as being the "spirit" or perverseness and the motivator for all immoral actions. Poe uses imagery to describe the imp, emphasizing its demonic and destructive nature, but also its appeal.
Religion
Poe uses many examples of religious imagery in this short story. For example, he compares the soul before committing an act of "perverseness" as being "on fire," which is imagery associated with hell. He later uses the image of falling off a precipice, which is an allusion to the biblical fall of man. At the beginning of the text, he refers to "God's will" and provides a discussion of this.
Interestingly, although Poe's narrator states that he murdered his victim, the cause of death was reported to have been "death by the visitation of God."
