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Is the narrator of “The Tell Tale Heart” sane or insane? “Sanity: a sound of mind; not mad or mentally ill (Webster Dictionary pg. 862).” In the short story, “The Tell Tale Heart.” the narrator tries to convince the audience that he is sane; he says “... but why will you say that I am mad (Poe pg. 202).” I believe that the narrator is sane. He tries to prove that he is sane throughout the entire short story that he is not mad. For example, he was very wary during the seven days that he stalked the old man, he felt an intense amount of guilt, and that he made this brilliant plan of murder. The narrator of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell Tale Heart” uses extreme caution stalking and murdering the old man. This proves the narrator is sane, because …show more content…
This proves that the narrator is fair-minded because most mad people do not experience guilt in which the narrator did. Also, the narrator was hearing the beat of the old man's heartbeat which was actually his. The more the police questioned him the louder the beat got. “Villains!” I shrieked, “dissemble no more! I admit the deed!- tear up the planks!-here, here!-its is the beating of his hideous heart(Poe page 207)!” Another reason the narrator proves not to be insane is that he planned this genius plan of murder. An example of his so called “perfect” murder, he hid the dismembered corpse underneath the floor so well that you couldn’t tell with the naked eye. “I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly that no human eye--not even his-- could have detected anything wrong (Poe page 206).” The old man and the narrator’s neighbor heard a loud scream previously that night. The narrator then lied and said “I smiled,-- for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome.The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream (Poe page 207).” Many people who have read “The Tell Tale Heart,” argue whether or not the narrator is sane or insane. Throughout this paper I have mentioned the main reasons for the narrator being sane. The narrator experienced guilt, he also was very wary executing the plan, and the intelligence level of his plan to murder the old
In the book the “Tell-Tale Heart” by Edger Allen Poe, the narrator visited the old man and whenever the old man would look at the narrator, the narrator felt judged and scared because the old man had a “Vulture” looking eye. Every night, the narrator would go into the old man’s room and plan on a way to get rid of the eye that infuriated and made the narrator so scared. The narrator killed the old man, however confessed to the murder. “And so, I had finally decided I had to kill the old man and close the eye forever!” This quote showed how the narrator was not mentally sane. Insanity is a mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality and cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior. The narrator said that his hearing became a lot more powerful and could hear sounds from both heaven and hell and these are some symptoms of being mentally insane. The narrator’s insanity in “The Tell-Tale Heart” makes the narrator feel
Throughout the whole story the narrator is trying to convince the reader that he is not “mad”, but actually very clever. He makes the statement “the disease had sharpened my sense – not destroyed them” (Poe 1127) then goes on to say “madmen know nothing. But you should have seemed me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded” (Poe 1127). The killer wants to be perceived as wise and intelligent when in all actuality he is insane. Due to his mental instability and his contradicting actions he proves himself to be an unreliable narrator. The narrator’s reasons for killing the old man do not make sense at all thrust forth solidifying the idea of mad man. The narrator says “It is impossible to say how the idea entered my brain” (Poe 1127) even he doesn’t know where the idea to murder the man came from in the first place. He also states “I loved the old man. He had never wronged me.” (Poe 1127) there was no motivation of revenge. The narrator eliminates another possible motive by saying “For his gold I had no desire” (Poe 1127) so all the practical reasons for murdering someone did not motivate him to kill. The physical appearance of the man’s pale blue eye is what drove the narrator to kill, which questions the narrator’s mental
He continuously tells the reader that he is, in fact, sane and has never been more so. The narrators in Poe 's stories are typically not without a flaw that gives the reader a reason to feel pity toward them; they usually have some trait which propels them into being hopeless in situations. In "The Tell-Tale Heart," the protagonist has the flaw of insanity, which leads to his downfall. He admits to the murder after he becomes convinced he hears the dead old man 's heart beating. While the narrator claims he is completely sane, it is due on some level to his awareness he is not. While in denial, he shares his feelings about his condition with others and gives himself away. The narrator does this so often it may cause a reader to wonder if he is doing it on purpose or if he is just that insane. The main character 's biggest conflict is with himself. He practically begs the reader to be blind to his actions and only to hear his words which say his mind is in one piece. Had he thought it through or been saner, he would have seen his words and his actions told two completely different stories. For all the narrator 's claims that his condition was helping him rather than hindering him, he failed to see and take action to prevent this from
The behavior of the narrator in The Tell-Tale heart demonstrate characteristic that are associated with people with obsessive-compulsive disorder and paranoid schizophrenia . When Poe wrote this story in 1843 obsessive-compulsive disorder and paranoia had not been discovered. However in modern times the characteristics demonstrated by the narrator leads people to believe that he has a mental illness. Poe’s narrator demonstrates classic signs throughout the story leading the reader to believe that this character is mad
Edgar Allen Poe shows what really happens when someone experiences anxiety and terror that drives his or her mentally ill when given the obstacles inside his mind. The obstacles described inside Tell-Tale Heart bring the narrator to an ironic end. These hindrances slowly build up to a chilling end for the narrator. This end is drawn out with the beating of a heart that doesn’t go away and reminds the narrator that the old man is still haunting him. The narrator has an idea in his head that he is not crazy and in fact is too calm to be mad and has an ironic story behind it.
In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” the narrator attempts to assert his sanity while describing a murder he carefully planned and executed. Despite his claims that he is not mad, it is very obvious that his actions are a result of his mental disorder. Hollie Pritchard writes in her article, “it has been suggested that it is not the idea but the form of his madness that is of importance to the story” (144). There is evidence in the text to support that the narrator suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and was experiencing the active phase of said disease when the murder happened. The narrator’s actions in “The Tell-Tale Heart” are a result of him succumbing to his paranoid schizophrenia.
The heart told the tale of the murder. He was positive that he successfully got away with murder. The narrator no longer had to endure the agony of the vulture eye, but there was a new problem. The mystery of the old man’s beating heart gave the narrator the ideal that the police officers, also, knew of the horrific slaying. As the heartbeats grew louder, the narrator could no longer bare the sound of the heat. Yet, the sound the narrator heard was not real. It was all in his head. The narrator’s judgments to demonstrate he was sane proved that his was mentally unstable.
The narrator in "The Tell-Tale Heart" is characterized as someone that is mentally deranged; the very first line portrays his madness. "True! -- nervous -- very, very, dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?" (884). This line introduces the nervousness that is a part of the narrator's obvious mental issue, which is a significant part of why the narrator kills the old man. In addition, this line is the beginning of the narrator's attempt to convince his audience that he is sane, which he fails to do. As a matter of fact, his attempts to prove his sanity only go to show that he is actually insane. For example, his explanation and attempt to justify the decision to kill the old man only leads the audience to think
Madness is relative. The sanity of the narrator in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart is best approached from two sides. One of which are from the narrator’s point of view, and the other is a neutral perspective. This is a man who stalked another, murdered him, and covered his traces only to be harassed by his victim’s heartbeat. With the narrator’s consistent denial of his madness, his homicide and overwhelming guilt is what induced his severe paranoia and apparent insanity. However, his actions were committed through fear, while his story affected by false memory and trauma. The narrator’s experience shows how a truly traumatic event can prove to completely destroy and alter any man’s sanity.
In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrator of the story decides to murder the old man that lives with him and admits it was because of his “Evil Eye”. He said that the eye haunts him day and night and admits that it was the motive for the murder. I believe that the narrator is insane because he kills the old man for no logical reason. I really think that he should be put in a mental hospital.
Firstly, at the end of this story, the narrator’s illusions are the most powerful pieces of evidence for his madness. It is his two illusions that betrays him and imposed him to confess the crime. His first illusion is the beating of the old man’s heart which actually did not exist. Initialy, exactly as he portrayed "My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears, it continued and became more distinct", the ringing he heard haunted him ceaselessly. Then he "found that the noise was not within his ear", and thought the fancy in his ear was the beating of old man’s heart. Because of the increasing noise, he thought the officers must hear it, too. However, in fact, everything he heard is absurd and illusive. And it proves that the narrator is really insane. Next, his second illusion is the officers’ "hypocritical smiles" which pushed him to completely be out of control. Losting of his mind, he called the officer "Villains". Apparently, he was confused and falsely thought "they were making a mockery of his horror" which irritated him intensively. Consequently, he told all the truth and "admitted the deed" in order to get rid of the growing noise. Therefore, the above two pieces of evidence both reveal the truth that the narrator is absolutely insane in contrary to what the narrator tried to tell us.
Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell Tale Heart" is a short story about how a murderer's conscience overtakes him and whether the narrator is insane or if he suffers from over acuteness of the senses. Poe suggests the narrator is insane by the narrator's claims of sanity, the narrator's actions bring out the narrative irony of the story, and the narrator is insane according to the definition of insanity as it applies to "The Tell Tale Heart". First, Poe suggests the narrator is insane by his assertions of sanity. For example, the narrator declares that he planned the murder so expertly he could not be insane. He says, "Now this is the point.
The narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” is not guilty because of reason of insanity. Although the narrator claimed that he was not mad, he acted like it. He even thought that the old man had an “Evil Eye” that was vexing him. He actually seemed proud, and sounded like he was very confident, acting as if he was better than “mad” people. He is insane.
A psychotic human will remain normal under the circumstances in which he is not attained too. The narrator, ladies and gentlemen, is suffering from a medical condition called psychosis. Psychosis is when individuals will experience disruptions to their conscience and perception. They will start to either hear, feel, or taste things that are not real. Strange emotions, behaviors, and perpetual thoughts will be noticeable. “The disease had sharpened my senses --not destroyed --not dulled them.” This Is exactly what we appear to be seeing in the narrator in the short story “The Tell-Tale heart.” The narrator is a schizophreniac and is trapped within his psychotic mind toward the old man's evil eye.
Summarize Your Main Arguments: The narrator has concocted a tale of obsession over the eye of the old man, therefore killing the old man to raid himself off the eye becomes justify. But in an intriguing twist, his mind and acute sense of hearing conspire against him leading him to admit his deed and in so doing his insanity. Proving his sanity meant a lot to the narrator in The Tell Tale Heart, but in the end he became the victim of his own insanity (4).