Examples Of Insanity In The Tell Tale Heart

The Tell Tale Heart shows insanity due to the narrator's obsession with the old man's eye. “How, then, and I mad?” First, The Tell Tale Heart has many examples of insanity. For instance, the narrator demonstrates how much he loves the old man, but at the same time despises him due to his eye. Throughout the beginning the narrator questions the actions he took, and whether or not if he is crazy. “I loved the old man. He had never wronged me....For his gold I had no desire. I think that it was his eye!" Every night for the past eight nights the narrator creeps into the old man's house and stalks the old man watching his every move. This is most certainly insanity because he is breaking and entering just to look at the old man's eye. Next, The

After the killing, the narrator stuffed the body of the man under the planks in the house. Three cops came in the house, and the narrator wasn’t worried at all about being caught. Furthermore, the narrator tells the cops that the old man was out of the country and the scream made was by him in a nightmare. The three gentleman believed the narrator untruthful acts, and all four of them sat down to talk. This example alone shows how the narrator thinks and what he did to the old man is obsurbed and insane. In addition, while all four of them were sitting, the narrator kept hearing a piercing sound. Once again the narrator thought the sound was the old man's heartbeat. This shows the narrator is insane because how can you hear a heartbeat when the person is dead? This made the narrator freak out and he was becoming very irritated. He kept telling himself the cops heard it too, but they really didn’t. The narrator couldn’t take the sound anymore so he blurted out to the cops saying he was the one who killed the old man, revealing the planks where the body was stuffed. For that reason, the narrator is showing insanity because he hears a heartbeat that no one else hears. This also shows the guilt of the narrator's