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Insanity In The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

922 Words4 Pages

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I will be defending that the accused individual is legally insane, and that because of this, he wasn’t fully aware of his actions and therefore can’t be held accountable for his activities during the time of the murder. He is guilty of murdering an old man, the murder was caused by his insanity and because of this I will be extricating the narrator from this situation. The anonymous narrator is legally insane because he couldn’t distinguish the difference between fantasy and reality. He was subject to uncontrollable, impulsive behavior, and was unable to tell right from wrong during the murder. The first, and perhaps most obvious, symptom of mental illness exhibited by the narrator is nervousness. This nervousness …show more content…

We see these delusions when he describes “the wise precautions that I took for concealment of the body“(Poe 12). He has “replaced the boards so cleverly, cunningly...there was nothing to wash out - no stain of any kind - no blood spots anywhere. I had been too wary for that”(Poe 13). Also, the narrator states “It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! - would a madman have been as wise as this” (Poe 3)? It is identifiable that even as the narrator brags about himself, he still worries about whether or not the reader thinks that he is a madman, for it is clearly and most definitely the truth. He also places substantial emphasis on his wisdom in dealing with the disposal of the body that he does not affiliate it with the atrocity of the crime. Therefore, he is unable to decipher the difference between right and wrong and cannot be held accountable for his acts due to his …show more content…

He fits into all three categories of insanity. He couldn’t distinguish the difference between fantasy and reality, he was subject to uncontrollable, impulsive behavior, and was unable to tell right from wrong in the situation. However, the prosecution argued otherwise. They insisted that the man could only be considered insane after two years of showing signs of insanity to be considered legally insane. Nonetheless, the legal definition of insanity states “ In criminal cases, a plea of ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’ will require a trial on the issue of the defendant’s insanity (or sanity) at the time the crime was committed,”so the prosecution provided false evidence for the trial and it cannot be proven through this evidence that he is sane. Throughout “A Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator tries to convince the reader he is not insane and/or a madman. Every event that takes place throughout the story that would indicate a mental disorder is trailed by his persistence in convincing the reader of his mental stability. It is apparent that the narrator is insane. The narrator possesses many aspects associated with insanity. Despite, the narrator’s attempts to convince use of his sanity, every piece of evidence affirms that he is indeed legally

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