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Obsession In The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

696 Words3 Pages

How credible could the story of a deranged person be? The fact that Poe wrote this story as a narrative makes it more credible. As far as we know the narrator is telling the story as he/she knows it. It is evident that the narrator is hinged he frequently restates that he is not mad. How do we know we can trust the narrator, or how could we point out the parts that are real or fake? We can’t, we just have to trust the narrators word. As much as the narrator tries to assure us that he/she is not mad we can’t help but question he/she’s word. The narrator claims he has a “disease” to which he swears it’s different from being insane he also says that his senses are extremely powerful. Hearing seems to be the sense that fortified the most as the …show more content…

I don’t think obsession equals insanity but I strongly believe that obsession can take over someone’s sanity. It could’ve been the narrator’s obsession with the old man’s eye which seemed to make the narrator blood freeze; it was just something about that eye that had him restless. The narrator says the old man’s eye looks like a vulture eye which might have some symbolism in it. Vultures feed on the dead and anticipate the death of an animal or human, could Poe be hinting that the old man was dying or is almost going to die? For some odd reason the narrator can’t kill the old man if his eye is closed there’s just something about that eye that drives him insane. Once he has killed the man he thinks that what he did to the body is genius as the narrator says “If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body.” The narrator seems to take pride on his deed. The narrator brags about his genius as he/she says “I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye --not even his --could have detected anything wrong.” This statement just makes us think that at some point that evil eye could see secret things. By the time the policemen got there the narrator was already calm as if getting rid of the eye brought him serenity. However as the

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The author writes, “The disease had sharpened my senses - not destroyed - not dulled them.” (Poe, 1843) This text describes that the killer has a mental disorder. Poe also writes, “‘Villains!’ I shrieked, “dissemble no more” I admit the deed! - tear up the planks - here, here!

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The author feels in grave danger of the cops finding a dead body in his house. In the end, Poe realizes he’s into insanity. Edgar Allan Poe goes crazy for an eye. With an old man living with him for a couple of years now, he realizes he wants the vulture eye that the old man has. An example, “He had the eye of a vulture – a pale blue eye

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Just that small facet mentioned proves he was psychotic. Additionally, on page 89, the Narrator actually admits to the reader that “…the disease has sharpened my senses…” (Poe 89), thus proving he is insane. Nonetheless the fact that he talks hypocritically, for example, the fact that before he does something a psychotic person would do, like “I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.” (Poe 89), he says “You

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His intention was not to kill the old man, but to “rid myself of the eye forever... He had the eye of a vulture-- a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold” (Poe, 1843). The madman had the impression that he was doing something beneficial by getting rid of the evil eye. He thought that this justified the fact the he was going to kill the old man.

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While this may be the case, many people may think he was fully aware of what he was doing. This can be proven wrong because the narrator states, “I loved the old man. He had never wronged me... I think it was his eye yes, it was this!”(2).This quote reveals that it was not the old man at all that had made him want to murder him, it was his eye that was his motivation.

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The narrator refuses to let the creepiness of the eye go, he is haunted by the image of the eye. He became so obsessed with the eye, that eventually this was the only thing he could see when he saw the old man, he could no longer look the man in the face the only thing he looked at was the eye. He describe the eye as evil and compares it to a vulture. These word symbolize the narrator in the end, he kills the old man and dismembers his body and then hides him under the floor boards of the bedroom. The narrator spent eight nights “circling his pray “ by cracking open the door to just the eye starring back at him before his killed the old man just as a vulture would do to its prey.

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These two opposite feelings paint the narrator as insane, since he gets angry over such a small object as an eye. No sane person would get angry over an eye, nonetheless kill due to it. The butler says, “His eye would trouble me no more”(Poe) as if the eye was committing horrible crimes against him, but it was not; it was just existing. And when he gets rid of the eye a feeling of peace and content washes over him, knowing that the evil tainting his world is gone.

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The man says, “You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing.” Tying in with the arrogant tones as well, the man has a very dark mind and the readers get a glimpse of his thought train through first person. He explains he needs to “take the life of the old man and thus rid myself of the eye forever.” No sane person would kill over a color of an eye, but as he describes the old man’s eye, the audience begins to understand why he takes the life of the old man.

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The narrator from The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe was not insane but only paranoid. The story is about a man who is an old person's car taker, but for some reason, he was obsessed with the old man's eye. The eyes were different colors. Then the caregiver killed the old man by suffocating him with a pillow.

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But does it describe how healthy his mind is..? Of course it does. The vulture eye, the eye which made the man tremble in fear at the sight of it. This was the main reason for the murderous act. “And so, I finally decided I had to kill the old man and close that eye forever!”

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The next clue that the narrator is schizophrenic can be found in his auditory hallucinations throughout the story. A hallucination is a perceptual experience in the absence of external stimuli (Medical Dictionary). Before and after he kills the old man he claims to hear the man’s heart beat and compares it to a watch’s ticking. “Now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes… I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man's heart.”

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1164 Words | 5 Pages

The narrator 's sole reason for such murder is purely in his disturbed mind, as he develops an obsession with the old man 's eye and the plot unfolds from here where his insanity augments with the events of the story. Due to Poe’s illustrative language, various evidence can be presented to confirm the state of mind of the narrator, including, his obsession with the old man’s eye, his precision in committing the impeccable crime and finally the sound of the man’s beating heart solely inside his head. Perhaps it all started with the narrator’s obsession with the man’s “vulture eye” since he believes the eye of being evil, proving the insanity he is gravely trying to deny “I think it was

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1545 Words | 7 Pages

The author uses obsession to appeal to the senses of the reader and create a new character that it is not expected at all. The main character obsesses over the eye and creates an individual separated fictional persona from the old man as target, which can be called as the object of obsession. His obsession grew so much that it became and impediment in his life

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Every day and night that the eye would haunt him, he would receive a better understanding to how he will overcome the eye. An obsession begins as a thought about someone or something, which is what happens to the narrator, the thought of the eye is the beginning of his obsession for it. The author satisfies his obsession “every night, about midnight” by “turning the latch” of the old man’s door and peeking his head through (3.4-7). By doing so, he got to take a look at the old man’s pale blue eye. To the narrator this eye stimulates an unhealthy obsession.

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821 Words | 4 Pages

The story of the narrator is untrustworthy at times because he is a madman, gives unbelievable statements, and continues to let what others cannot hear affect him. Some of the things the narrator starts off by saying shows he is a madman or a psychopath. It is hard to trust someone like that because they are good manipulators and at falsifying information to others. The narrator reveals, “I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Poe 37).

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