The Insanity Of The Narrator In Tell-Tale Heart

In Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" we question the sanity of the narrator almost immediately, but we cannot prove either way whether or not he is insane. I have read a lot of Poe's work although not all of it. His mysterious style of writing greatly appeals to me. Poe has an uncanny talent for exposing our common nightmares and the hysteria lurking beneath our carefully structured lives. I believe, for the most part, that this is done through his use of setting and his narrative style. In The Tell-Tale Heart, the setting was used to portray a dark and gloomy picture of an old house lit only with lantern light with a possible madman lurking inside. I think this was

The narrator butchered the man. That is an indisputable fact. The question is, is he sane? The narrator stalked an innocent man for 8 nights, then brutally murdered and grotesquely dismembered him. He then proceeds to put the body parts under the floor boards. The narrator talks about his surprisingly logical thought process, the careful and perfect execution of his plan, and his terrible guilt as he could hear the dead man’s heart beat. The defense will tell you that this man is an innocent, sedentary man, and that everything he did was the fault of his mental illness, but do not listen to them. This man is deleterious, and it is imperative that he is locked away. The narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart” was sane because he could distinguish fantasy from reality, he could feel guilt, and he was thinking logically. This evidence will prove that the narrator is sane.

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".

Edgar Allen Poe uses dramatic irony in the “Tell Tale Heart” in the line “I moved it slowly一very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man’s sleep”(Poe 1). This line is saying the narrator is moving into the old man’s room and looking at him but, the old man doesn’t know that the narrator is looking at him. This creates suspense by the reader knowing that the narrator is sneaking into the bedroom and looking at the old man but, the old man does not know. Dramatic Irony creates suspense by the readering knowing more about the situation than one of the characters does. So, in this case we known the narrator is planning to kill the old man but he does not know. This is how the “Tell Tale Heart” uses dramatic irony.

1. He is not a reliable narrator because he is insane. Though he repeatedly states that he is sane, the reader suspects otherwise from his bizarre reasoning, behavior, and speech. ‘‘True—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?'' The reader realizes through Poe’s description of the narrator’s extreme nervousness that the protagonist has in fact descended into madness, as anxiety is a common symptom of insanity. He apparently suffers from some form of paranoia. Besides, the narrator claims that he loves the old man and has no motive for the murder other than his growing dislike of a cloudy film over one of the old man’s eyes. His madness becomes

What happens when an individual descends into madness? This process is the focus of both Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Tell-Tale Heart”, and Emily Dickinson’s poem “I Felt a Funeral in my Brain.” Both texts use many structural techniques and literary devices to draw attention to the central idea of insanity. This insanity takes the form of a deviation from what the reader would consider normal. In spite of the two authors’ drastically different writing styles, one element remains constant, the masterful use of punctuation.

First, “The Tell-Tale Heart” develops horror by having an unreliable crazy narrator. For example, we see his psyche in the introduction of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story. “I heard all things in the heaven and earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad?” (par. 1). This gives the audience the insight into the narrator’s mind; therefore, the narrator has some sort of schizophrenia that causes him to not hear, think, or behave correctly. As the narrator talks to the reader he thinks he is not crazy and that his thoughts are normal. Next, the short story is written in first person point of view which makes the story way more interesting and you see how mad this character is. “I grew furious as I gazed upon it” (par. 9). In first person point of view the reader can almost imagine the whole situation as the narrator is in the old man’s room looking at his vulture eye. Plus, the narrator killing the old man was premeditated, and that the narrator was in the man’s house to murder him due to his mental health issues. The psycho narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” develops horror in this short story.

A unreliable narrator is someone who lies and deceives, the reader. In addition to that a narrator who is insane is also a unreliable narrator. In the short stories that we have read, including Strawberry Spring, by Stephen King where a mentally ill college student starts going on a killing spree during the strawberry spring where the winter warms and there is a lot of fog.The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is which is about a hallucinating woman in a large estate where she is being held by her husband and being captivated in a room for her 0“sickness” of having oppressive thinking and ideas., and A Tell Tale Heart, by Edgar Allen Poe which is about a madman who watched a old man sleep for 7 days straight in the night and then killed him on the 8th because of his “vulture eye”. All of the narrators are mentally insane, therefore rendering each narrator unreliable. Each of which being in their own way. The most unreliable narrator is from A Tell Tale heart by Edgar Allen Poe because he is in denial about his mental health and rationalizes criminal behavior.

One’s mind holds the truth that the rest of the world does not know. People have the choice to tell the world the truth, and even if they do not speak the truth, it is just hidden in their mind. Although people sometimes hide the truth, their actions can help you determine if they are speaking truthfully. For example, in the short story “The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe the narrator does not tell the reader what exactly happens, and he alters the truth. The narrator is unreliable because he exaggerates the truth, is insane, and acts as an omniscient narrator at times.

In the Tell Tale Heart there is a silly reason for murder. The man kills an old man because he has a form of cataract. He complains about his eye being milky and it being evil. The killer also

Horror is fiction that scares the audience or gives an eerie mood. Each short story develops horror is its own way. “The Tell Tale Heart” is about how an old man is murdered because of his evil vulture eye. “A Rose for Emily” is about how an old woman poisoned her lover to keep him from leaving. “The Lottery” is about how this town has a drawing to see who will be the sacrifice to the crops. Horror is developed in “The Tell Tale Heart,” “A Rose for Emily,” and “The Lottery” with many elements of horror.

In the story “The Tell Tale Heart” the narrator wants to show the reader that he is not insane. As proof, he offers a story. In the story, the initial situation is the narrator’s decision to kill the old man so that the man’s “evil” eye will stop

‘The Tell Tale Heart" murder was similar; however the reasons for murder were different. The narrator, who doesn’t have a name, is a neurotic and suffers from a hypersensitive condition. In this short story, the narrator plots to kill an old man, with a vulture eye. The differences between these two murders: the victim in this case was an old man and was like a mentor to him. The narrator had a close relationship with him; they weren’t enemies or rivals as in "The Cask". The murder from the ‘The Cask, was a jealous murder. This murder was done to prove a point. "The Tell Tale" the victim (the old man), as the narrator describes, had a pale blue eye with a film over it "a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones". As I was reading, I realized that he didn’t really have a good reason to kill the old man. It almost seemed as if he were looking for a reason to kill him. "Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this!" This narrator doesn’t kill his mentor, over jealousy, or insults. The narrator kills the old man because of his eyes. He doesn’t like the old man’s "vulture" eye, and it really bothered him due

Edgar Allen Poe was known for his dark-romanticism writings which evoked horror in readers. Seen specifically in his short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, readers are able to get into the mind of the mentally ill narrator who murders an elderly man, one whom he claimed to love. Poe created conflict in this story by having the narrator admit to loving the man and having him be his caretaker. Conflict, and the story line, is created because it makes readers question why he would commit such a heinous crime as killing and dismembering the man. Readers eventually find out that it is the elderly man’s eye that pushes the narrator to do what he does. The narrator is trying to justify his actions and prove his sanity by explaining how he observes

John Green once said, “It's quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see,” a fitting quote to define the works of American author, Edgar Allen Poe, known for his short stories written in the 1800’s. Famous works include “The Black Cat”, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, and “Berenice" before his untimely death in 1849. Often ridiculed for his absurd stories, Poe was fueled by his many losses in his childhood, including his mother and wife, and alcoholism. Many of his stories are that of the horror genre and often uses an unreliable character. Just as some of his most famous characters, Poe was seen as a mentally unstable man who was burdened by the hardships of his life. Through unreliable narratives, Poe emphasizes fear in the thin line