preview

The Tell Tale Heart Analysis

Decent Essays

Every 1 out of 5 people in the United States suffers from some type of mental illness every year as per National Alliance on Mental Illness (Nami.org). People can be a victim of mental illness without them even realizing that they are suffering from any mental problems which can put the society in grave danger. “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a short story based on this issue. The story was written by the famous writer Edgar Allan Poe and published in 1843 (Poemuseum.org 2017). Poe is critically acclaimed for his works on suspense, mystery, crime as well as macabre. The characters in the story are the narrator, the old man, and the policemen. This story focuses on a mentally disturbed individual who questions his own sanity throughout the story and tries to convince the audience in justifying the murder he commits. The narrator keeps the audience on the edge of their seat with his over-the-top dialogues and soliloquy. The first-person point of view is the most important narrative element in “The Tell-Tale heart” because the bird’s eye view of the narrator puts forward a distorted form of reality, the character’s diseased state of mind, and the unreliable nature of narration in the story.
The psychotic nature of the narrator presents a distorted form of reality for the audience, which disables the audience to pass any judgment on the narrator. In the first paragraph, the narrator believes he is superior to other people as he quotes, “Indeed, the illness only made my mind, my feelings, my senses stronger, more powerful” (Poe 64). The illness that the narrator talks about is mysterious in nature, but the audience can manifest that it is a neural defect that the narrator is trying to point out. In the eyes of the narrator, he could do everything in perfection and held good judgment (Witherington 472). It also sheds light on the fact that the narrator is a narcissist and believes in self-praise, which is also the result of his bad mental health. Poe has been very clinical in displaying the over-inflated self-worth of the narrator, and he requests the audience to tolerate such indelible attitude of the narrator. Thus, it is clear that the way he sees himself makes the audience believe he is falsified of his capabilities.

Get Access