The Tell-Tale Heart: An Analysis

So he could have really loved the old man, but thought he was something else when he was in a fantasy world. Another example of the narrator's insanity is that he couldn't control his impulses. The narrator says in paragraph 11 “So strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror.” The quote shows that right before the murder was committed, the narrator was filled with uncontrollable terror. So he was so scared that he couldn't control his impulses because of how terrified he was by the noise.

So he could have really loved the old man, but thought he was something else when he was in a fantasy world. Another example of the narrator's insanity is that he couldn't control his impulses. The narrator says in paragraph 11 “So strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror.” The quote shows that right before the murder was committed, the narrator was filled with uncontrollable terror. So he was so scared that he couldn't control his impulses because of how terrified he was by the noise.

Because of his meticulous steps, we can conclude that the narrator in not insane because he knows that he is

He couldn't tell the difference between fantasy and reality. One of the reasons to prove he is insane is on the first page of the story he said: “The disease had sharpened his senses - not destroyed - not dulled.” Usually, when you are sick you feel tired and don't want to eat. But the disease had sharpened his senses instead of destroying or dulling his senses. Which makes him sense the presence the evil eye even though he was not there as which was wound on page sixty-one.

“The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and legs.” Most insane people people forget things easily

Without that initial statement, why would we think him mad? Then he says; "Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing." How does he know that madmen know nothing? I wrote in my own journal once; "Insanity is not madness. Sanity is madness, if one can distinguish the difference between sanity and insanity, does that not then make you sane?" So then, if the narrator questions our thoughts on his sanity, he must then know the difference or that there is a difference between sanity and insanity, does that not then create some question as to his own sanity? I think from the very beginning he questioned his own sanity to himself thereby creating the question of insanity to the reader! Isn't that insane? (ha ha) But was he insane? Insane is defined in Webster's New Concise Dictionary as: "Not Sane; mentally deranged or unsound. Set apart for demented persons. Not Whole." OK, well we still cannot prove that he was or was not insane. Was he a psychopath? Some would say yes, most definitely. But what is a psychopath? Psychopaths have a character type that enables them to pursue pleasure with indifference to the suffering they cause others. Psychopaths are completely lacking such virtues as benevolence and compassion. In this story, the narrator says; "I loved the old man.

This gives evidence of him falsifying his madness. He also explains to his mother that he is absolutely not crazy, but instead that part of his plan or craft was for him to fake being mad: "I essentially am not in madness, but mad in craft." (III iv 187-188).2

First of all, the narrator was playing it safe. The short-story states, “You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded.” Here, he is trying to convince us that he is not insane. The narrator thoroughly thought out his plan for the murder. A madman would have simply just killed the old man with no effort at all.

Poe proposes that the main character is insane by his declarations of sanity. For example, the narrator says that there is no way that he could be insane because he planned the murders so perfectly. In the story, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, written by Edgar Allen Poe, the main character states “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! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week I killed him” (388). This quote shows how the narrator actually thinks that he is sane because of the acts that he partakes in during the week that he was going to kill the old man. Another example of this comes from the article, “Ego-Evil and The Tell-Tale Heart”, written by Magdalen Wing-chi Ki, where it notes “In Poe’s stories, Ego-Evil stands out because his hero’s frame of mind is utterly corrupt at its root: the villain can recognize his deviance through the other;

The audience should also notice within the first paragraph where the legal definition of insanity could also be applied. It is here where his words begin to contradict themselves. It is here where he starts to demonstrate a mad man, by accusing the audience of coming to the conclusion that he is mad. He then goes on to imply that if he were mad, he “would be out of control, …profoundly illogical, and not even recognize the implications of his

There four main attributes on being insane, 1) Knowing reality from fantasy, 2) can or cannot manage his own affairs, 3) controllable/uncontrollable, and 4) knowing from right from wrong. To begin with, Mr.Smith didn’t know if he was in reality or fantasy. On page 55, “I heard

In the first few paragraphs of the story, the narrator makes a point of rejecting the idea that he is mad. It almost seems as if he goes out of his way to reassure readers that he is indeed sane. It was at this point that I first got an inclination that the narrator was unreliable, either because he is insane, or just lying. The average person who

The insanity of the narrator is reinforced by what happens in the story. The story starts with the narrator being sane by saying “how calmly i can tell you the whole story.”(pg 56) and following this the narrator said “ i loved the old man. Never given me an insult.”(pg 56). Putting that quote in explains how he loves the man and that the old man would never do anything to him. The narrator starts telling the reader he plans to kill his old man because he has a vulture eye, and that the old man is not guilty for his own death. Every night for eight nights, the narrator brings a lantern and watches the old man sleep. Until one night the old man wakes up, and the narrator comes in and suffocates him with his bed sheets because he saw the vulture

“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

Thus proving he is not insane due to the amount of effort he put in to carrying out the old man’s murder. The Narrator had the mental ability to control himself during those 8 nights and not murder the old man right then and there. The Narrator has self control and he knows the importance of hiding a body so as not to get caught. An insane person woud have been very careless and no self