Paranoia in Prose An analytical treatment of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”

When the narrator initially thought of the idea of the murder, he was particularly precise about it. He patiently waited seven days until the eighth midnight to ultimately kill the old man. Not only that, but the murderer deliberately had

There are several passages within the story that demonstrate auditory hallucinations, deluded beliefs thought processes, and violent tendencies. In modern times we can conclude these are symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. However, when this story was composed, paranoid schizophrenia was not yet discovered, meaning this tale would have been originally considered dark and sinister, compared to society’s current standards.

In many of Edgar Allan Poe’s short works, he is said to not waste any space on the page , using literary devices to his advantage. This cannot be more evident than in Poe’s 1843 work, “The Tell Tale Heart”. In this work, Poe creates a chilling, and obsessive voice with hint of insanity at the hands of an unnamed narrator,using harsh diction, syntax, and tone.

The motivation for murder according to the narrator was “not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye” (Poe 922). However, it is possible that the eye symbolizes a necrosis of the narrator’s spirit. The narrator uses terms such as “infuriate”, “hideous”, “vulture” and “dammed” when describing the eye (Poe 923). These words are often used to describe the demonization of individuals who commit irrational crimes against humanity, such as the crime our narrator is confessing to, the murder and dismemberment of an innocent old man in his sleep. In “The Physiognomical Meaning of Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’”, Edward W. Pritcher states “it

The narrator's background is a mystery to the reader but his characteristics were evidently presented on his way of narration. All the obsessive details and the whole elaborate plan the man narrated was enough evidence to confirm the reader that he is truly out of his mind. The narrator is obsessive, paranoid, and insane and these characteristics are the problems which led to the conflict. His "too much thinking" attitude was his own protagonist in the story.

Edgar Allan Poe tells his short story “The Tell Tale Heart” in the form of the first-person narration. Such choice of giving an account of events may present certain difficulties for the readers because the protagonist of the story, who is also its narrator, is clearly a person in an unstable psychological state, whose arguments and appeal may be reasonably misunderstood by society. However, if Poe preferred an omniscient third-person storytelling, it would have deprived his audience of a chance to get an insight into a complicated and rather scaring line of reasoning of a mentally disturbed person. From this perspective, the first-person narrator performs a double

Imagine having a never-ending, itching urge in your head telling you to do something in order to make it all go away. This is what the narrator in, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, by Edgar Allan Poe went through on a constant basis. The narrator of the short story tries to convince the reader that he is not insane, all while describing how and why he murdered an old man that he says he loved. The narrator claims to have a disease in which his senses become overly sensitive; making him murder the old man because of paranoia, mental illness, and obsessive tendencies.

In “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe, the narrator is a man who believes he is sane but is actually crazy. The story begins with the matter thinking he isn't insane but in reality he is. The narrator decides to kill the old man due to his “vulture eye”. The narrator's writing style is formal and uses literary devices such as metaphors, similes, and irony.

Moreover, he tries to defend his sanity by explaining how wise and cautious he was as he was preparing for the murder. Every night he checked on the old man to make sure he got everything right and get ready to execute his plan. The narration lacks of a concrete explanation of the person or place to which it is addressed, which leaves much room for interpretation for the readers. What we can infer from the story is it is not addressed to the police officers since the narrator says he was successful in making them satisfied. Finally, the climax of the story comes as the revelation of the dead body hidden under the planks. Because the story is told as a memento, our estimation might be that the narrator is addressing a court official or personage who may influence over the judgment of the narrator. Therefore, the story that the narrator is telling is most accurately realized as an appeal for mercy rather than just being an appeal to be thought sane.

Edgar Allan Poe is regarded as one of the most influential American writers of the nineteenth-century. Poe’s short stories posses the recurring themes of death, murder and his narrators often show signs of mental instability, like the old man in “The Tell-Tale Heart” and Montressor in “The Cask of Amontillado”. Since tragedy was prominent throughout Poe’s life, his work reflects the darkness ingrained by continuously being faced with adversity. Poe’s mental stability also comes into question when analyzing his works. The use of his unreliable narrators and their psychological issues present the questions of Poe’s own mental capacity. Because of the tragedy that occurred in Poe’s life, his experiences in life may have been influential on his unreliable narrators and his stories.

The protagonist, who narrated the entire story from his point of view, describes it as a "most wild, yet most homely narrative"5. He tells us that he's about to describe events that he himself doesn't understand, and he doesn't expect the reader to believe the story (he even says that his "very senses reject their own evidence"). On the other hand, he insists that the reader might make sense of the events he describes, and see them as "nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects"6. This contradiction tells us right away that something might be wrong about the narrator's

The story begins with the narrator mentioning that he has a disease, although he does not tell what it is, and states that it has only made him stronger and has sharpened his senses. He also makes it clear that he did not dislike the old man, he even states “I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire.

In reading “The Tell-tale Heart”, I find the narrator to be unreliable. Questions about his mental stability are apparent within the first paragraph. He calls out to the reader at onset, “It True! Yes I have been ill, very ill” (Poe, n.d.). He states that his illness made his senses sharper and stronger and that he can hear heaven and hell (Poe, n.d.). The perceived tone of the narrator is arrogant and gleeful or excited. I see the mental instability as he excitingly recounts the events in a justified manner as if he was helping the old man by ridding him of the “evil eye” (Poe, n.d.). His arrogance from the thought that he can get away with what he did to the old man was also evident. His maintained an attitude of superiority over others

The main character in the story “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe, is the unknown narrator. Poe gave the story its title to provide a study of paranoia and mental demoralization. This character have some issues within himself but believes nothing is wrong. He begins by claiming that he is “nervous but not mad” and wants to justify the reason he killed an old man. This story illustrate the psychological contradictions that present to a murderous profile.

Madness is defined as the state of being mentally ill, especially severely. Madness and the Gothic genre are connected in a great number of ways, such as the obsession with death and the deceased, as well as an infatuation with the grotesque. The mad often claim to have witnessed supernatural events which are also depicted within the Gothic genre. With such a copious amount of connections it is not difficult to imagine that some if not most Gothic characters act as though they are mad. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe Gothic elements are used to convey the madness of the narrator to the reader. The grotesque and an unreliable narrator appear which shows that “The Tell-Tale Heart” can be considered within the Gothic genre.