Insanity In The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was a poet in the 19th century. He is well known for his mystery and macabre writing pieces, which in this case is “The Tell-Tale Heart.” The tale discusses a man who stalked an old man for days, then ultimately killed him by suffocation and dismembered his body, all because he believes that the old man’s eye is cursed. Would this be the work of an insane man who needs immediate medical help or is simply guilty and must be sentenced to jail? The narrator clearly has a disease and must receive treatment at a mental institution. His minacious and unreliable tone provides evidence that he is ill, as well as delusional thinking, and abnormal behavior and actions prove and support this statement.

Primarily, the narrator wrote this narrative in order to prove his sanity, however the more he tries to support that statement, he gives more evidence that verifies the contrary, that he is insane. For example, narrator begins writing with

The narrator had been psychotic all along but had succeeded in concealing the body so carefully, as said in the text as “. . . I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye—not even his—could have detected anything wrong. ” Until the officers came, he began imagining that he was hearing the old man’s heart beating louder and louder. Additionally, the narrator states that he heard all the things in heaven and hell, then questions the reader “How, then, am I mad?” This shows that the he cannot differentiate reality from the voices in his head, and believes that hearing these things are normal. All this evidence supports the fact that he is