The first reason he is guilty of first degree murder, is because he planned the attack, and stalked the old man every night. He hadn't just come up with his actions. "… and so by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man," (39). So he slowly decided to do it, and it wasn't impulse. The fact that he planned to kill the old man is just one of the reasons why the narrator is guilty of murder.
Second, there is the fact that he confessed his crime, so he knew it was an atrocious crime to commit. His guilty conscience told him to confess, and he did. "'Villains! Dissemble no more! I admit the deed!"' (46). If you hadn't known it was wrong to kill the old man, you wouldn't tell the police. Or, if you did, you
Bath, N.Y. (WENY) -- An Elmira man who served as the 'look out' the night of Kelley Stage Clayton's death will be sentenced on Monday.
How does any of this make sense, because it doesn’t. None of the evidence works together to prove either his guilt or purity. Yet he was still found guilty of murder. From my point of view, there isn’t anything that attaches him to the murder. His lawyer was absolutely horrible!
There are many ways to decide what makes a man guilty. In an ethical sense, there is more to guilt than just committing the crime. In Charles Brockden Browns’ Wieland, the reader is presented with a moral dilemma: is Theodore Wieland guilty of murdering his wife and children, even though he claims that the command came from God, or is Carwin guilty because of his history of using persuasive voices, even though his role in the Wieland family’s murder is questionable? To answer these questions, one must consider what determines guilt, such as responsibility, motives, consequences, and the act itself. No matter which view is taken on what determines a man’s guilt, it can be concluded that
This evidence includes the narrator not being able control himself and the narrator was only killing the man because of his eye and nothing else. In the story the narrator killed the old man while under the control of a mental disorder meaning he could not control himself proving him not guilty. The narrator says in the beginning of the story,“It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night.” This shows he could not stop thinking
I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man’s heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage”(11). Later the man goes into the room and kills the old man. This shows that he acted upon impulse when he killed him. According to Psychology Today, part of the definition of being insane is that a person “is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior,” proving that he is mentally insane. This proves that he is mentally insane and not a calculated killer because a calculated killer would not have acted on impulse and would have had it planned out. Therefore, the narrator is mentally insane.
On a dark night Macbeth paced back and forth with the thought of murder going through his mind. It was this night Macbeth and his wife planned on murdering the King, Duncan. After committing the crime he confesses to his wife that it is done, “I have done the deed” (2.2. 14). Macbeth would be charged with first degree murder because of the following reasons. The murder of duncan was premeditated, he showed guilt, and continued to murder. Although he may be llusional now he was not at that state before he committed the murder, once he took action the mental torture began.
To begin with, the narrator is guilty of premeditated murder because he planned to dispatch the innocent man. Throughout the short story, Edgar Allan Poe describes the events leading to the confession and made some points clear that he is guilty of premeditated murder. For example, the narrator tells the readers that he has been stalking the old man for seven nights just at twelve. “I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him … to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked upon him while he slept.” (Poe) As you can see, the narrator is clearly devising a plan to kill the old
He had the reasoning and understanding of what he did, but he still went through with killing an elderly couple.
The narrator of the text “The Tell-Tale Heart” is insane because he is unable to tell what is right and what is wrong. When he was discussing the way he covered up the murder, he described it as if it was a good thing. He made it clear that he was proud of himself and that he thought what he was doing was right. The narrator states “ I then replaced the boards so clever, so cunningly, yet no human eye - not even his - could have detected anything wrong. There was nothing to wash out- no stain of any kind- no blood- spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A tub had caught all- ha! ha!” The fact that he considers what he did clever and cunning shows that he doesn't see any fault in what he did. Any sane person would see that covering up a murder is indeed wrong. Unlike the narrator who assumed covering up a murder is something to brag about.
The guilt and madness of the killer made him believe that everyone knew what he had done and in turn was torturing
First of all, he prepared for the murder of the old man by watching the old man for a week before killing him. In his confession, he said, “And this I did for seven long nights,” which means he watched the old man for seven nights before the murder. It wasn’t a spur of the moment decision. He was aware of his actions. He could have stopped one of the nights but continued on, thus was premeditated murder.
O’Brien, like many other characters, feels guilty about more than one thing. For example, “I feel guilty sometimes. Forty-three years old and I’m still writing stories” (34). Not only does O’Brien feel guilty about writing stories still, but the feels the most guilty about the man he killed. “This is why I keep writing war stories: He was a short, slender young man of about twenty” (131). O’Brien is basically saying that the guilt he has over the death of this man is why he writes stories. Additionally, O’Brien says things such as “The young man’s fingernails were clean” and “He wore a gold ring on the third finger of his right hand” (128). The fact that O’Brien has every detail of the man’s appearance, and a fake backstory of the man memorized, shows just how much the guilt of killing this man has made O’Brien think about the man, and what his life could have been.
In addition to the fact that the narrator understood that murdering someone is wrong, the narrator has a motive for killing the old man. Right off the bat, the narrator tells the reader why he wanted to kill the old man. He says, “I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture—a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees—very gradually—I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever.” This indicates that he had a clear rationale for killing the old man and is guilty of first degree, or premeditated murder. Some may argue that the narrator is mentally insane and killed the man because over an irrational fear caused by his mental illness. However, an insane person would not wait to terminate a powerful feeling of paranoia and to assassinate the person causing such fear.
While the narrator regrets his actions he doesn’t really feel bad about them, though he feels he should. This is the real guilt that results in an intense self-hate that leads to narrator maiming and killing those close to him.
“It was a head-doctor at the penitentiary said what I had done was kill my daddy but I known that for a lie” (306). The reason why he thinks like this might be because he was falsely accused of killing his own father. He simply does whatever he wants to in life in his own complete free will due to his philosophy on life.