The Tell-Tale Heart Insanity

As the noise grew louder the narrator decided to make the final approach towards the old man by running out yelling “Die, Die!” As the old man dies, the narrator said “Still his heart was beating; but I smiled as I felt that success was near. For many minutes that heart continued to beat; but at last the beating stopped.” As the situation stopped the narrator soon calmed down which slowed down his heart rate, the narrator soon grabbed the bed sheets, to closely listen to the old man’s heart. Once he was pleased of not hearing the heart, he quickly dismembered the body and hid the old man in his bedroom under the floor planks.

It is unreliable to expect that the eye can be separate from the once body when in reality the eye is attached to the body. It is also unreliable for the narrator to kill the old man when he maintains his love for the old man. In the process of destroying the old man’s eye, he ends up killing the man and later believing that the other parts of the man’s body are haunting his presence. In the two stories the narrator is

The second reason why this man deserves justice is because he was obviously having some sort of mental breakdown at the time of his “crime”. He seems to be violently angry and very anxious. In the story, my client had just killed the old man and begins conversing with himself, “--do you mark me well I have told you that I am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror” (3). This quotes helps prove that the narrator is innocent for plea of insanity because he is showing another major symptom of a mental disease- anxious or violent outbursts. The man even admits to being nervous before he killed the old man. The quote also describes how the old man's dead heart still beating in the narrator's mind and is taking over his thoughts. My client also connects his hypnotic state to bringing him “uncontrollable terror”. This supports his symptoms of anxiety because it shows his mind being taken over by his nervousness. Towards the end of the text, the narrator feels too guilted and lets his anger get the best of himself, “I foamed --I raved --I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually

After the murder, the narrator hears a knock at the door. He proceeds to open the door to find that it is three policemen, who were there because of a disturbance call. The police tells the narrator for why they are there, which a neighbor heard a scream in the night. When the narrator hears this, he tells the police that it was his scream. Once the narrator welcomes the police to search the home, the narrator goes as far as leading police into the room where he had committed a murder and hid the body. The narrator cleverly comes up with an idea to hide the murder, “The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the house. I bade them search-search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber” (Poe, 887). The narrator shows the police that there was nothing abnormal in the house, he proceeds to talk to them while feeling at ease.

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” The story The Tell Tale Heart is about a man who was once sick and now is seen as insane. He lives with an old man that has on evil eye. That eye drives the narrator crazy to the point of where he wants to kill the old man. He ends up killing the old man and hides the body under the floorboards upstairs. The police later show up because of a complaint of a scream heard from the house. The narrator ends up confessing the murder and is taken to jail. Is the narrator guilty of murder or not guilty by reason of insanity? The narrator is guilty of first degree murder because he planned it out, was very careful, and over though because of his guilt.

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

At the start of this story, the narrator recognizes that he has been ill but don’t have lost control of his mind, and instead the illness have increased his feelings, “True!—I am nervous—very nervous! But don't say I am mad. The disease had sharpened my senses—not dulled them—especially my hearing. I could hear everything in heaven and in hell” (Poe). The narrator states that he can hear everything from heaven and in hell. These signs are a clear sign of insanity, to be specific, this happens to people with schizophrenia. Exist cases where persons are completely sure that hear voices, and tell them to do certain things. For example, how the Schizophrenia and violent behavior study

     The storyteller goes to great lengths to conceal the murder. First, he dismembers the body, collecting the blood in the bathtub so that there would be no blood stains anywhere. He then buries the body parts under the planks on the floorboards in such a way that "no human eye--not even his--could have detected anything wrong." The storyteller says this

The death of a man who was brutally dismembered, lies in the hands of “the narrator.” The defendant confessed to the murder, claiming to hear an unbearable noise, similar to that of a watch wrapped in cotton. Upon hearing the sound, the narrator was unable to keep up his facade and burst out, yelling that he was guilty. While the narrator did kill the man, he was insane and should not go to prison; instead, he should go to a mental facility where he can be treated for his condition. The murderer had killed a man in cold blood because of a diseased eye, tried to prove his own sanity, and heard sounds that were made up in his own mind. Therefore, the judge should plead him insane and place the narrator in a facility.

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

Furthermore, he realized that his neighbors heard a scream and that they would call the police. The narrator even went as far as to cover up the body and hide it under the tiles of his own home. In addition, since he knew that the police would come to his house because of the shriek, he took precautions beforehand to cover up the body. Not to mention that he even told the police that the scream that the neighbors heard the night before was his from “A bad dream”. This further proves my theory that the narrator was mentally stable at the time of the murder

Once Edwards befriends the group of young men who share theories about the eye, he realizes how much of an influence it has on them. Edward explains that “it was said the eye had magic powers. It was said the eye could see. It was said to be bad luck to look directly into the eye…” (58-59). Wallace uses repetition of the beginning of each short sentence to reinforce the idea that the eye has considerable amount of figurative power over the young men. They were so fearful of it that they never did any of the things mentioned because of myths they had heard about the eye. Later, after Edward has the eye for a night and brings it back to the group, he brings the woman to them, with they eye where it should be. Once the young men saw the eye in her head, he explains that, “And though they would have run they couldn’t. And though they would have turned away they couldn’t,”

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.

One might object here that the narrator lacked the mental capacity to distinguish right from wrong. The claim of mental insanity could be supported by the narrator’s abnormal hearing of the dead old man’s heart thumping. “...but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew-louder-louder-louder!” (Poe). It is correct that normal people do not hear dead people’s hearts beating, however, what he likely heard was the sound of his own heart ringing loudly in his ears due to his guilty conscience.

Edgar Allen Poe is the genius responsible for dark, twisting, and often uncomfortably wondrous gothic tales, and one of the best is 'The Tell-Tale Heart.' This is a classic tale of a confused man who is so incredibly bothered by his housemate's eye, that he (I am assuming this sexless character is male) thinks the only solution is to resort to cold-blooded murder. Poe incorporates the symbol of the old man's eye in 'The Tell-Tale Heart,' which has both physical and psychological meaning, it also helps to develop the plot and central conflicts in the story. The eye allows a better understanding of the narrator's mental state, represents an omniscient/fatherly figure, and helps illustrate the theme of good verses evil.