The Tell Tale Heart Interpretive Essay

733 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Psychological analysis of edgar allan poe

Name: Pranav Rawat Period:1/2 Date: 1/30 “ The Tell-Tale Heart” Interpretive Essay A person who has lost all sanity stalks his prey, an old man. “The Tell Tale Heart” is a short-story by Edgar Allan Poe, about a man who has lost the tethers that chain him, unwillingly to reality. Based on the evidence presented in the 8th Amendment of the Death Penalty the main character should be sentenced to a psychiatric hospital because the narrator shows symptoms of a condition called psychosis. Psychosis is a condition which reveals itself when a person constantly hears voices, has a sense of superiority, and thinks that his or her thoughts/delusions are heard universally. The man has almost all of the symptoms of psychosis, which is a mental disorder …show more content…

This is shown by the multiple times the man calls himself a genius, often having a distorted perception of insanity. Repeatedly, the man says that he is not moronic, which is the clearly false converse of the statement:”If you are at the mental age under 10(in other words, idiotic), then you are insane.” What our protagonist has done is he has taken the inverse, or rather reciprocal, the converse of the conditional if put into mathematical terms. “If you are insane, then your mental age is under 10.” It is clear that the man has deemed this converse to be true, thinking that insanity can only be represented by the keen aspects of one’s knowledge, unable to grasp at the truth, making excuses thinking that a lie can become a truth. “Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded --with what caution --with what foresight --with what dissimulation I went to work!”(Poe, 1843). Thus, shows how he has only a fragmented view of the standard person, or rather put it, unable to perceive the limits and extents to distinguish the fine line of sanity and insanity. Although this may be the case, the man clearly stated how he planned and executed his premeditated act, as evidence for a death sentence. Nevertheless, it is clear that he has shown actions of narcissism and hallucinations caused by …show more content…

Frequently, throughout the story the man hears a thumping only described as hideous by him. Gradually, this thumping gets louder, to a time where he subconsciously rids himself of guilt and confesses. “But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! and now --again! --hark! louder! louder! louder! Louder! "Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! --tear up the planks! here, here! --It is the beating of his hideous heart!" Moreover, there is more to these voices for it is clear that the patient is constantly being in paranoia, fearing the policemen and their audacity to ridicule him shamelessly. Funnily, this all happened within the head, because the policemen did not react to his frustration and nervousness. Furthermore, this is a sign of persecutory delusions, where a patient suffering from psychosis or a mental illness, is “persecuted” to an emotional exhaustion of pent up

Show More
Related

  • Insanity In The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

    1008 Words  | 3 Pages

    This definition points to schizophrenic paranoia as the mental disorder of the narrator, and even possibly, Poe. This is further made apparent through symptoms which the narrator exhibits. The first symptom is delusion, which is that which may exists in the mind but does not exist in reality. The second symptom is catatonic behavior. The third symptom is hallucination, or the unreal sensory experience that occurs in the patient’s mind, which is made apparent through the auditory sense of the narrator. The narrator exaggerates evidences in the narrator deed are exaggerated. “And now a new anxiety seized me the sound would be heard by a neighbour!” – This is the quotation in the part where the narrator came into the old man’s room. He assured that he heard a strange sound considered as the heart beat of the old man and it was loud for him. He accused that the sound was too loud that even the neighbor might be able to hear it. He continues: “It grew louder - louder - louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! - no, no! They heard! - they suspected! - they knew! - they were making a mockery of my horror!-this I thought, and this I think.” This is the part when the narrator and the police were having chat in the room. The narrator heard the

    Read More

  • Insanity as a Metaphor in The Yellow Wall-Paper, The Tell-Tale Heart, Hamlet, and Mad Song

    1630 Words  | 4 Pages

    The creation of a stressful psychological state of mind is prevalent in the story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, as well as, Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”, Ophelia’s struggles in William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, and the self-inflicted sickness seen in William Blake’s “Mad Song”. All the characters, in these stories and poems, are subjected to external forces that plant the seed of irrationality into their minds; thus, creating an adverse intellectual reaction, that from an outsider’s point of view, could be misconstrued as being in an altered state due to the introduction of a drug, prescribed or otherwise, furthering the percep...

    Read More

  • Essay On Tell Tale Heart

    582 Words  | 2 Pages

    Have you ever felt the urge to know how it feels to be insane. Have you wonder how it would feel to be rid of something that haunted you for eight days. Have you felt the thrill of getting rid of it by ending it. I might be a little crazy but, I strongly believe that tell tale heart is appropriate for the 8th grade standard. “What is the Tell Tale Heart?”, you my ask. Tell Tale Heart is a horror genre story that is about a man who suffers from a mental disease, and he lives with a old man that never harmed him or wronged him. What made him kill him was because of the old man’s eye. “It was like a vulture’s eye” (pg.89) so he stalked him in his sleep every night for seven days just to see the old man’s eye open. His verge to insanity he was not stable. He was already ill, but instead of seeking for help he states that it sharpened his senses. He stated that he was trustworthy (no end mark; reread this run-on

    Read More

  • Tell Tale Heart Narrator's Insanity

    933 Words  | 2 Pages

    How can we justify if a man is insane or sane? A man may talk like a wise man, and yet act as if he is paranoid. A man with such manner cannot imply insane to us, we can only anticipate he is sane. In this case, the insane man attempted to persuade the reader that he was normal. However, several pieces of evidence indicated his insanity. In Edgar Allen Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrator is insane because he has a serious illness, he cannot tell fantasy from reality, and he hallucinates. By examining his behaviour and mind, I will analyze his insanity comprehensively.

    Read More

  • Comparing The Tell-Tale Heart And The Yellow Wallpaper

    811 Words  | 2 Pages

    I did not hate the old man; I even loved him. He has never hurt me. I did not want his money. I think it was his eye” (Poe 64). Psychosis is seen in the difficult rationality the narrator uses to defend his murder.

    Read More

  • Illusion versus Reality in The Tell Tale Heart

    1144 Words  | 3 Pages

    How can we justify a man is mad or not? A man may talk like a wise man, and yet act like a mad man. In Poe’s "The Tell-Tale Heart", the narrator depicted a story that he killed the old man because of the old man’s so-call "evil eye" which made his blood run cold. Althought the narrator tried to persuade the reader that he was normal, several pieces of evidence of confusing illusion and reality adequately indicates his madness and absurdity. By examining his behaviour and mind, I will expound his madness thoroughly.

    Read More

  • Tell-tale Heart Literary Analysis

    710 Words  | 2 Pages

    Like many of Poe's other works, the Tell-Tale Heart is a dark story. This particular one focuses on the events leading the death of an old man, and the events afterwards. That's the basics of it, but there are many deep meanings hidden in the three page short story. Poe uses techniques such as first person narrative, irony and style to pull off a believable sense of paranoia.

    Read More

  • The Tell Tale Heart Literary Analysis

    761 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the article, “The Question of Poe’s Narrators” James W. Gargano discusses the criticize in “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe and tries to help the readers understand why Poe writes the way he does and identifies some of the quotes in his work. According, to Gargano, other authors view’s Poe’s work as “cheap or embarrassing Gothic Style” (177). The author is saying that Poe’s work makes the reader look at themselves not only the work. The author explores three main points. Some author thinks that Poe’s life is reflected in a lot of his work, uses dramatic language to show his style in work, and explains how Poe’s work manipulates his readers to understand.

    Read More

  • Insanity In The Tell Tale Heart

    1063 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Symbolism and Irony in The Tell-Tale Heart

    2255 Words  | 5 Pages

    "The Tell-Tale Heart" consists of a monologue in which the murderer of an old man protests his insanity rather than his guilt: "You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded . . ." (Poe 121). By the narrator insisting so emphatically that he is sane, the reader is assured that he is indeed deranged. E. Arthur Robinson feels that by using this irony the narrator creates a feeling of hysteria, and the turmoil resulting from this hysteria is what places "The Tell-Tale Heart" in the list of the greatest horror stories of all time (94).

    Read More

  • Point of view "Tell-Tale Heart"

    609 Words  | 2 Pages

    Poe writes “The Tell Tale Heart” from the perspective of the murderer of the old man. When an author creates a situation where the central character tells his own account, the overall impact of the story is heightened. The narrator, in this story, adds to the overall effect of horror by continually stressing to the reader that he or she is not mad, and tries to convince us of that fact by how carefully this brutal crime was planned and executed. The point of view helps communicate that the theme is madness to the audience because from the beginning the narrator uses repetition, onomatopoeias, similes, hyperboles, metaphors and irony.

    Read More

  • Literary Analysis Of The Tell Tale Heart

    1694 Words  | 4 Pages

    The major part of the story was mostly about the guilt of the narrator. The story is about a mad man that after killing his companion for no reason hears a never-ending heartbeat and lets out his sense of guilty by shouting out his confession.

    Read More

  • Mental Illness In The Tell Tale Heart

    1328 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Tell Tale Heart

    1666 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the “Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator is extremely uncanny due to the reader’s inability to trust him. Right from the beggining the reader can tell that the narrator is crazy although the narrator does proclaim that he is sane. Since a person cannot trust a crazy person, the narrator himself is unreliable and therefore uncanny. Also as the story progress the narrator falls deeper and deeper into lunacy making him more and more unreliable, until the end of the story where the narrator gives in to his insanity, and the reader loses all ability to believe him.

    Read More

  • Characters of The Tell-Tale Heart

    1178 Words  | 3 Pages

    As the story begins the narrator tries to convince the reader that he is not insane. This goes on throughout the story. He says he suffers from over-acuteness. “And have I not told you that what you mist...

    Read More

More about The Tell Tale Heart Interpretive Essay

Open Document