What is your first impression of the narrator in "The Tell-tale Heart? What does he try to convince the reader to do?

The "Tell-tale Heart's" narrator wants, first of all, to convince the reader that he is not insane. He says that he is nervous, not "mad." He says that his senses, especially his hearing, are working better than ever. He implies that his ability to hear well, along with the extra acuteness of his other senses, is a sign of sanity, not insanity. As he puts it, "How, then, am I mad?" He says his ability to tell his story "calmly" is a sign of his mental health. He wants to convince the reader that he "loved" the man he murdered.

Of course, the narrator "protests too much" that he is sane, which immediately leaves the impression that he is, in fact, insane or, at the very least, mentally unstable. He comes across as defensive and over-wrought, lost in his own world where he is answering accusations that have not yet been made. This opening thus foreshadows the end of the story, when the narrator confesses to a crime nobody has accused him of committing.