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Is The Tell Tale Heart Crazy Or Insane

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The “Tell Tale Heart,” written by Edgar Allan Poe in the romantic era. In this short story the main character, referred to as the narrator, kills his old man. It all started at the beginning when the narrator looks upon the vulture eye of the old man. He feels the need to get rid of the eye, so he creates a plot to kill the old man. He kills him, but the police stop by because one of his neighbors heard a scream. The narrator remains calm through questioning, but ends up admitting to his crime at the end. His thoughts, speech, and actions end up proving that the narrator was insane throughout the story. The narrator can be proven insane by looking into his thoughts. In the beginning (Paragraph 1) of the story he says, “I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell.” The narrator is having trouble distinguishing reality from fantasy. This statement proves that he is insane according the …show more content…

The narrator stalks the old man in his sleep, “I looked in upon him while he slept.” (paragraph 3). The narrator doesn’t quite have a grasp on the situation and doesn’t really know what he is doing, which is exposed by his actions. In modern times we convince ourselves that stalkers are crazy and creepy. The narrator would also be described similarly. Also, when the narrator has already killed the old man, he tries to contain the body. The narrator has his own unique way of doing this, “First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs. I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings” (paragraphs 12 and 13). He believed that this was the best way to contain the corpse, but over time the body would have rotted leaving a horrible aroma that would show everyone exactly where the dismembered corpse was. He was impulsive in the execution of the killing and would, therefore be thought of as

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540 Words | 3 Pages

By analyzing the evidence, I have determined the killer not legally insane during the act of murdering the old man. It is evident in the story that the killer can determine fantasy from reality. All parts of the story told are relevant and show awareness of everything that is happening. For example, in the beginning, the killer reiterates that he is not insane and boasts about how clearly he can tell the story.

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1007 Words | 5 Pages

Moreover, he clearly remembered how and when he did the murder. Needless to say, he was obviously not insane and should lawfully be punished and face the full consequences. The narrator planned out a very calculated and inhumane murder and was sure to leave behind absolutely no evidence which is impracticable for a mentally ill person to do. He planned everything out and went to the old man 's room, put in a dark lantern, eyeballed the old man “this [he] did for seven long nights—every night just at

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908 Words | 4 Pages

The narrator begins to dismember the old man’s body and places it under the floor, and while doing so he takes delight in how cautiously he rids of any evidence that could incriminate him; “A tub had caught all – ha ha!” He attempts to show us that because of the “wise” precautions he took, no one could consider him to be mad, yet his actions proved otherwise to readers. With this wild laughter and behavior, he is showing that he has lost all logical capability, and the dismembering of the old man was an act of great anomaly. The narrator mentioned earlier in the story; “The disease had sharpened my senses … I heard all things in the heaven and the earth.”

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565 Words | 3 Pages

While what he did was horrible and insane-like, the narrator did this process very sanely and put lots of thought into it. No absolute insane person would spend days and days watching someone sleep, or acting perfectly normal around victim just so they could tike their kill perfectly, even though watching someone sleep is an insane trait. He was very cautious in this, “But you should have seen how wisely I proceeded -- with what caution -- with what foresight, with what dissimulation, I went to work!” and proved to be quite patient, “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.’’ So he couldn’t have been totally insane, right?

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840 Words | 4 Pages

The narrator is completely out of control. He is “very dreadfully nervous,” (341) paranoid, and mad. He does not seem to understand the difference between the real and the unreal, which makes him murderer an innocent old man. The narrator claims that he had to kill the old man simply to be free of the power of his eye because “Object there was none. Passion

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389 Words | 2 Pages

The Tell-Tale Heart is a story about an insane narrator claiming to his sanity after murdering an old man out of anxiety and panic. Many believe the evidence points to the narrator being a calculated killer. After reviewing the symptoms of the narrator I believe him to be a man plagued with anxiety issues and panic attacks. First of all, the only reason the narrator had for such crime was of his eye, the eye of a vulture, nothing else. Not for his gold, property, or vengeance just his eye.

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1109 Words | 5 Pages

Edgar Allan Poe made sure the reader knew more than the secondary character in his short story to build suspense. For the entire week before he murdered the old man, the main character crept into his bedroom every night, and observed the man while he slept. “I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up in the bed… He was still sitting up in the bed, listening;--just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall.” From the beginning, the audience knew the man would be murdered, and the suspense built from this knowledge.

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1395 Words | 6 Pages

In Edgar Allan Poe’s tales of criminal insanity, the first-person narrators confess unsound confessions. They control the narrative, which only allows us to see through their eyes. However, they do describe their own pathological or psychological actions so conscientiously that they exhibit their own insanity. They are usually incapable of stepping back from their narratives to detect their own madness. The narrator 's’ fluency is meticulous and often opulent.

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928 Words | 4 Pages

(Poe 4) After killing the man; chopping up his body; and hiding it beneath the floorboards, the narrator the narrator hears a noise that, at first, he cannot place. The heartbeat of a dead man and his general fear of the old man illustrate his Schizophrenia and his disconnection from reality. These diagnoses are examples of the narrator’s characteristics that prove his

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945 Words | 4 Pages

All of his deranged actions validate his madness. The narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” is discernibly a madman. His motives, actions, and thoughts prove his insanity. The definition of insanity fits the narrator to a T. His psychosis controlled his behaviors and pushed him into chopping up another human being and disposing the pieces like

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434 Words | 2 Pages

The narrator proclaims that there is no possible way that he could be a madman, because he is too calm and wise to be insane. In the end of the story however, his own guilty heart made him admit to killing the old man. The narrator could take it no longer and

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882 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout the story, three major details of the narrator’s psyche are confirmed. First, we learned of the narrator’s deceitfulness. Every morning he lies to the old man with the least bit of guilt. The next continues to prove the madness as the narrator feels utter joy from the terror of another. Lastly, the narrator fabricates that the old man is simply not home to assure the officers.

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496 Words | 2 Pages

Ultimately it comes down to this, insane or sane? Insane would be the perfect way of describing a person being mad, killing a man for no reason, and laughing at a horrifying death. After having the narrator showing so many things to prove he is insane rather than sane is pretty clear. The author allows a visual understanding of the narrator in the “Tell Tale Heart” from having many specific details about his point of view.

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780 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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838 Words | 4 Pages

The narrator jumped on the man and killed him. After dismembering the body and burying the sections beneath the floorboards, the crazed man heard a knock at the door and it was the police who received a report of a shriek coming from the house. The narrator walks them through the house ensuring that everything is alright, and it culminates in the bedroom where he has buried the body. He sits with them and begins to make small talk but eventually he begins to hear the beating heart of the man he just killed. It grows louder and louder and eventually the narrator cannot stand it anymore and agonizingly gives himself up to the policeman, wishing for them to pry up the

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