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Insanity In Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart

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Unsoundness Of Mind.. Insanity is defined in many ways. It’s all up to the person and their point of view. The actual definition of insanity is “a mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior. Insanity is distinguished from low intelligence or mental deficiency due to age or injury.” (via http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=979) The narrator from the short story “The Tell Tale Heart” is a lot of things. One of the ways I describe him is insane.The narrator from “The Tell Tale Heart” is insane because he killed the old man due to his pale blue eye, kept hearing the heartbeat when the …show more content…

He says “ I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. (page 174)” Certainly, you can’t hear things from heaven and hell. He must be imagining the sounds, which means he’s mad. Also, he claimed to hear the heartbeat of the dead old man. “Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God!--no,no! They heard!--they heard not? Almighty God!--no,no! They heard!--they suspected!--they knew!--they were making a mockery of my horror! (page 181) Although some people say that the heart was still beating, that’s not possible because he chopped off all the body parts and took the heart out which makes it no longer connected and beating. Seeing that the old man's dead, and the heart is no longer pounding, how can he hear it? Therefore, this proves the narrator's …show more content…

Firstly, he killed the old man because of his eye. Additionally , he claimed that he kept hearing the heartbeat when the old man was dead. In closing, he had no control over himself. The difference between a sane person and an insane person is how they think and act. The narrator is obviously insane since he acted easy and normal in situations that are expected to be handled differently, like the time the policemen came to question him about the noises coming out of the house. On the other hand, the narrator acted weirdly in situations that are expected be handled in a normal way, like when the policemen were in the house. He acted weirdly since he was suspecting the policemen by thinking that they might know something about the death of the old man. He thought that the policemen suspected him for the murder of the old man. Therefore, he is indeed

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In Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrator should not be guilty by reason of insanity. “Insanity Defense” states that a man is innocent by means of insanity if he has committed the crime because he is “unable to control his impulses” as a result of mental disease (“Insanity Defense” 1). Similarly, the narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” viewed the old man’s “pale blue eye, with a film over it” with hatred (Poe 1). When the old man’s eye looked upon the narrator, he would uncontrollably increase in fury and anger. This led the narrator to “[make] up [his] mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid [him]self of the eye forever” (Poe 1).

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The narrator attempted to cover his insanity and show that he is sane with the intention to not to get suspected by the old man. The old man with the blue eye is innocent and unconscious of what the narrator is doing. In fact, nothing the narrator tells the readers about the old man fits the common definition of insanity. However, it fits the narrator 's definition perfectly as he claims “Madmen know nothing”(Poe 303). Feeling confident the narrator shows off to the readers about how flawless his plan was, his insanity is

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“Insanity: n. mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior” (Hill). This definition describes the narrator, a sweet yet deadly man, of “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe seamlessly. (Appositive) A few prominent characteristics demonstrate the narrator’s insanity, and those include his motives, his actions, and his thoughts.

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The Tell-Tale Heart Argumentative Paragraph In the story, “ The Tell-Tale Heart ,” Poe gives ideas which could prove that the narrator is criminally insane. The narrator could be named mad for some of his many actions and thoughts. The facts supporting this include: the defendant killed the old man over his “evil eye”, he brutally murdered the man and dismembered his body, he has to remind himself that he isn’t mad even though he committed murder, and states that he hears the dead man's heartbeat get louder and louder until he confesses murder. To begin with, the defendant kills the old man he lived with over his “evil” eye. He states that it gets to him, and drives him to eventually, after the 8th night, kill him.

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The narrator of “The Tell-tale Heart” is a madman who does not believe he is insane but continues to show otherwise during the telling of how he kills the old man to police officers. After a week of planning the murder, he still did not find satisfactory because he could still hear the beating of the old man’s heart. Also, if one is not a madman then why would one commit such a crime just because of an eye. While the narrator explains the story of how and why he commits murder, one can conclude that some details are unrealistic throughout his story. Which leads him to come off as a psychopath because of the details and the reason behind killing the old man.

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