Insane or Sane

In Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator is so bothered by an old man’s eye that he decides to kill him. In the end, he thinks he hears the beating of the old man’s heart even after he has died, so the narrator confesses to the police. Throughout the story, the narrator keeps insisting he is sane, “but why will you say that I am mad? The disease has sharpened my senses – not destroyed-not dulled them... How, then, am I mad?” (Poe). However, despite his constant justification of his judgment, on cannot help but question the narrator’s true sagacity.

In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, Edgar Allan Poe illustrates how obsession can quickly turn into madness and destroy its victim and those connected to them. The narrator tries to convince us that he is in full control of his thought yet he is experiencing a condition that causes him to be over sensitive. Throughout the story we can see his obsession proving his insanity. The narrator claims that he can be a bit anxious and over emotional, he is not insane. He tries to give proof this through the calmness of his tone as he tells this tale. He then explains how although he has much love for an old man who has always treated him kind, he

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.

First, Poe suggests the narrator is insane by his assertions of sanity. For example, the narrator declares because he planned the murder so expertly he could not be insane. He says, "Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen how wisely I proceeded-with what

“The Tell-Tale Heart,” by Edgar Allan Poe, is a petrifying short story. Poe incorporated a variety of literary elements to intimidate the reader. Personification, theme, and symbols are combined to create a suspenseful horror story.

In today’s society sanity is when someone is crazy or normal. In “The Tell Tale Heart”, story by Edgar Allan Poe is about how the narrator has taken over someone's life for an idea that came into his head. The narrator in the story “The Tell Tale Heart” is sane because of his intelligence thoughts and actions that he is doing.

In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Edgar Allen Poe depicts a gruesome tale. His use of dark imagery and harsh words make this story an unmistakable product of the Dark Romantic period. Poe’s use of the first person narrator adds an important dimension to the story. The narrator’s thoughts are eating him alive and Poe clearly portrays this to readers by repeating words and having the narrator constantly question himself:

“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe is a first-person narrative short story that showcases an enigmatic and veiled narrator. The storyteller makes us believe that he is in full control of his mind yet he is experiencing a disease that causes him over sensitivity of the senses. As we go through the story, we can find his fascination in proving his sanity. The narrator lives with an old man, who has a clouded, pale blue, vulture-like eye that makes him so helpless that he kills the old man. He admits that he had no interest or passion in killing the old man, whom he loved. Throughout the story, the narrator directs us towards how he ends up committing a horrifying murder and dissecting the corpse into pieces. The narrator who claims to

He watched the man sleep every night and he claimed that he heard noises, how can you possibly thing that the narrator is not insane? I believe he is insane due to his actions. He killed a man because of his eye then dismembered his corpse and then he said he hears noises. The narrator murdered an old man that was sleeping in his house, an old man that was probably his friend. The man had a vulture eye, a pale blue eye with a film over it. He murdered the old man because of his pale blue vulture eye. In the beginning of text, he said, “I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never insulted me. I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this!...Whenever it fell upon on me, my blood ran cold…I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.” This quote demonstrates how insane the narrator is. He killed the old man because of his hatred for the man’s eye. No normal human will do such deed for that reason.

In contrast to both Emerson and Thoreau, Poe is famous for his writings that we filled with mystery and death. In one of his excerpts, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, he writes to prove a man’s sanity while describing a murder he committed. This is quite ironic, seeing that someone who committed a horrendous crime such as murder would be ever be categorized as sane. The first entry into his passage describes how the character in the story believes himself to be healthy and wise. Also, he knows he has a disease, or at least claims to have one. Maybe this disease could possibly be alcoholism, causing his vision and overall mentality to be distorted. “True!-nervous – very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The

Edgar Allan Poe was a horror writer in the early 1840’s. His works were described as macabre horror because of how disturbing and horrifying they were. Throughout "The Tell-Tale Heart" the anonymous narrator is trying to prove that he is not insane. I believe the narrator in Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" is insane because he shows the madman's traits of being delusional, and being quick-tempered.

In this quote, the main character tries to convince the audience that he is not insane but rather the madness is an illness where I he is stronger through his senses and his mind. This could connect to the inner conflict when the protagonist cannot stop himself from hearing the heartbeat of the dead old mam as well as waiting in the doorway of the old man’s home to finally take care of the eye. Because Poe writes this story in first person narration towards the audience, it make the readers wonder the obsessions of a murderer and paranoia. This type of narration is also done in Poe’s short story “The Cask of Amontillado”, but rather in this story the narrator Montresor doesn’t seem to pull of the insane mind that the narrator of “The Tell-Tale heart” has. Instead, he knows what he is doing and that it has a purpose.

Throughout “The Tell-Tale Heart”, Edgar Allan Poe, tries to convey the central themes of guilt and insanity to the audience. How the narrator tells the story proves the theory completely. He tells his audience how he plans to kill the old man, and he takes them with him every step of the way. While telling the readers how he murders the man, he also assures them that he is not mad or insane. However, the readers know that he is crazy because he kills a harmless old man, that he claims to love, solely because he fears his eyeball. He is trying to convince himself of this, as well as, trying to convince his audience. Though he proves to have a mental incapability, he still shows signs of morality and guilt. The beating heart demonstrates this human quality that he obtains. When the narrator uses the lantern in his plan, he shows signs of

The first piece of evidence is when Poe writes, “It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! Would a madman have been so wise as this?” (Poe 3) The main idea of that quote is similar to another that is found in The Tell-Tale Heart. This is the part of the story where the narrator already murdered the old man and has dissembled the body and is hiding it. The narrator tells the audience, “If you still think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body.” ( Poe 12) He was silent and cautious to make sure he did not arouse the old man and attempted to not alert the neighbors of his devious deed. He thought wisely, and usually madmen do not think wisely. Insane people do things very recklessly and thoughtlessly when making decisions have been involved. That idea leads this essay into the next

In this story, Poe wrote in first person narrative.The setting is irrelevant all that we know is that it is the home of an elderly man in which the narrator is his caretaker. The main character is also the narrator who isn't named throughout the story. The Narrator In The Tell-Tale Heart is telling the story of how he killed the old man while pleading his sanity. To quote a phrase from the story, "The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily, how calmly, I can tell you the whole story." Even though he claims that he is sane here, The events that follow clearly show otherwise.