Is The Tell Tale Heart Crazy Or Insane

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

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