The “Imp of the Perverse” begins with a meditation on the narrator’s peculiar philosophy. He denounces various methods of evaluating human psychology, such as phrenology, because they do not adequately deal with the concept of a certain impulse. Phrenology assumes human impulses to be beneficial and sent by God (the periodic need to eat, for instance), but the narrator insists that darker impulses exist that can even override the need for self-preservation.
Some such impulses, the narrator maintains, are actively harmful—they drive a person to “perversely” do what they know they shouldn’t do. The narrator refers to this impulse as “the Imp of the Perverse.” The sensation of standing at the edge of a cliff and feeling the need to jump, for instance, comes from the Imp. The narrator also blames the Imp for his current circumstances: he is in a prison cell, condemned to be executed for murder.
The narrator goes on to reveal that he plotted murder “for many weeks and months” in order to gain a large inheritance from his victim. He finally hits upon the notion of using a poisoned candle in the victim’s room, since “I knew my victim’s habit of reading in bed. I knew, too, that his apartment was narrow and ill-ventilated.” The ruse works, and the victim is declared dead by an act of God.
For many years, the narrator enjoys his inheritance and the life it affords. Eventually, however, he grows preoccupied by a fear of discovery. The narrator keeps his troubling thoughts at bay for a time by periodically repeating the phrase, “I am safe.” Eventually, though, he changes the wording of the phrase: “I am safe—I am safe—yes—if I be not fool enough to make open confession!” Once this thought enters his mind, the narrator finds that he cannot get rid of it. In an effort to shake the thought, he takes off running in the street. As he begins to run faster, his flight attracts attention, and a crowd begins to pursue him. Nevertheless, he still fights the growing urge to confess to the point where he collapses—or, as he puts it, “some invisible fiend, I thought, struck me with his broad palm upon the back.” He confesses to the deed, though he doesn’t remember doing so.
Back in the story’s present, the narrator now waits in a prison cell for his inevitable execution (he is to be hanged the next day). He wonders where his spirit will end up after he is killed.
