How Does Edgar Allan Poe Use Insanity

Edgar Allen Poe expertly uses guilt to portray a deeper meaning to sanity and what it means to be insane, by representing guilt through personification and using relatable description in order to make it realistic, but not repetitive throughout his stories. Edgar Allen Poe’s descriptions portray guilt subtly and without too much resonation, in order for it to be found during an analysis. “My soul from that shadow that lies floating on the floor shall be lifted-nevermore!” – (Sestet 17, the Raven) The soul in this sense could be viewed as the narrator’s salvation, or his guilt of his past actions.
Edgar Allen Poe represents guilt and insanity through the denial of one’s sanity in the tell-tale heart, due to the narrator’s constant debate of

his own sanity. The narrator’s sense of self is completely lost in his mind, due to his actions being stated as wiser, cleverer or simply better than that of a madman. “You should have seen how wisely I proceeded, with what caution, with what foresight, with what dissimulation I went to work.” – (Page 1, the Tell-Tale Heart) Some greater arrogance is portrayed in the narrator’s thoughts, as if to say that he is the best murderer due to his precaution, almost as if his own insanity is a sharpened skill, rather than an ailment and disability.
Whether or not murderous insanity would qualify for a handicapped parking sticker is not the development that Edgar Allen Poe intended, Insanity was intended by Edgar Allen Poe to be shown in a vast variety of ways.

These methods are unquestioningly required to make a story dark, depressing and a general mood-killer, because they invoke a slight chuckle at the absurdity of the statement, followed by deep regret that one could laugh at such an exorbitantly graphic situation. “I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, thus ridding myself of the eye forever!” – (Page 1, the Tell-Tale Heart) Edgar Allen Poe expertly expresses the inner workings of a madman, without being too outlandishly miserable or nonsensical. These expressions delve into a tricky and tightrope-like subject, in whom the writer is forced to walk the path of insanity, without straying too much towards the lines of absurdity and mockery, a mockery almost to a sort of caricature of an ideal. While it is not unlikely that a psychopath strayed towards the line of mockery and believes everyone should be killed, because many have existed, but it is necessary to avoid this portrayal of insanity, due to it being misunderstood by the common person. Edgar Allen Poe delves into both sides of the tightrope in the Raven and the Tell-Tale Heart through their differences in writing and style; they could be described as

opposites.
Sanity and guilt are introduced and confirmed in very different ways in the two stories, which is surprising since they are written by the same author and cover the same principles, death, guilt and insanity. These principles are applied generously throughout each story, which makes each one surprisingly unique. Normally, a writer tends to reuse and recast old thoughts or ideas, Edgar Allen Poe does precisely the opposite, he reverses each of these principles in his two stories. The first of his principles, death, is displayed obviously in The Tell Tale Heart as opposed to The Raven, where death is heavily implied, while it is not openly stated. “First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs.” – (Page 4, the Tell-Tale Heart) and “Leave my loneliness unbroken! Quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!” – (Sestet 16, the Raven) these two quotes show that implications that were meant in the previous statement, between how death is portrayed within each story.
The second principle, guilt, is written with correspondence in both stories, at least to the degree of guilt’s image as a distinguishable and tangible entity.

The difference between guilt in the Tell Tale Heart and the Raven is how guilt is represented to them. In the Raven, the raven is guilt, suddenly shocking the narrator sending him into rage, shouting absurdities at raven to get it to leave. In the Tell Tale heart, Insanity is represented by the narrator hearing the non-existent beating heart of his dead victim, forcing him into a silent panic, which slowly built up as the heartbeat increased in pitch and volume. “Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend! Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s plutonian shore!” – (Sestet 16, the Raven) the opposites in the story are represented not by their reaction to grief, but their progression towards the grief over time. In the Raven, the narrator reacts suddenly and violently to grief, but once it is certain that the raven will not be leaving, the raven’s shadow hangs over him, driving him into a depression. In the Tell Tale Heart, the narrator starts off calmly but proceeds to increase in anger and agitation, until he admits to the heinous crime he has

committed.
The third and final principle that Edgar Allen Poe shares within the stories, which is the fundamental process of the Tell Tale Heart, is insanity. The cause of insanity is not known in the Tell Tale Heart, but the narrator is indubitably already insane in the story. The cause of insanity is precisely the opposite in the Raven; insanity is brought on by the never ceasing torment of the raven, driving the narrator into madness. The reactions of both narrators are two of the five stages of grief, depression and anger. In the Tell Tale Heart, the Narrator resorts to shrieking and arguing to the police officers, leading to his presumed arrest. The Raven is entirely different, the Raven isn’t as obvious as the Tell Tale Heart, statements have to be analyzed for meaning, “His eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming, and the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor, and my soul from out that shadow that lie floating on the floor shall be lifted nevermore!” – (Sestet 17, the Raven) the shadow being referred to is a depression, casting a shroud of darkness over him, which shall be lifted “nevermore,” meaning this depression shall never end.
Edgar Allen Poe uses guilt and insanity in a multitude of different ways within these stories, it was a creative endeavor to represent guilt in so many ways, but nonetheless it supported the statements that were made. The brutal honesty and realism of these stories touch on subjects that most wouldn’t dare, such as dismemberment of bodies, for a start. These endeavors will unceasingly spark wildfires of creativity, to prove that sanity; guilt and death are not only represented in shades of black and white, and can be shown in an extraordinarily large number of representations.