ipl-logo

Paranoia In The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

632 Words3 Pages

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. According to Psychiatry, the narrator shows 6 out of the 11 signs of mental illness. According to Mental Health America, however, the narrator shows 7 out of 9 symptoms of paranoia. If he was paranoid instead of insane he would get life in prison. The narrator was paranoid and should have gone to jail for life. The law says that if the person is proven mentally insane he/she is given a lighter punishment in a mental hospital. According to jaapl “An additional option could be “treatment years.” The court would determine the number of years of treatment required, according to the crime.” But if he/she is proven not mentally insane he/she is given full …show more content…

The narrator was paranoid and should have gone to jail for life. In court after the prosecutors and the defense finished. The jury then made a verdict that the narrator was innocent with reasons of insanity. Then the judge gave the narrator 9 months in a mental hospital. According to Mental Health America, the causes of paranoia are repressed, denied or projected feelings. The narrator shows projected because he was obsessed with the old man's eye, even enough to kill him and make a story about it. According to telltale horror “Llittle by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts.” The narrator showed projected feelings about the old man’s eye. This is one of the signs of paranoia. Another sign of paranoia is betrayal. In The Tell-Tale Heart, the narrator kills the

Show More
Related
524 Words | 3 Pages

Insanity Your Honor and Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury the caretaker in Edgar Allan Poe’s”The Tell-Tale Heart” is Insane; using the McNaughton rule proves that he should be placed in a state hospital for the criminally insane, He did not know what he was doing, He did not know that what he was doing was wrong. The caretaker is insane because the sounds he hears that causes him to go insane.

Read More
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.

Read More
457 Words | 2 Pages

If the Narrator in this story withstood a mental health review by a psychologist, they would say that he is “mentally ill” or if reviewed by psychologist of his time, “he is demon possessed”. Furthermore they would keep him under surveillance by a caretaker or psychiatric professional. Nevertheless he is still responsible for his actions; he killed a person and took the old man’s legs, head and arms form his body, and hide him under the floorboards of his room! Only an individual with an extreme mental illness or huge a passion to gain vengeance from another person! To begin this rant of arguments, the Narrator (is not given a name in the story) shows a lot of examples to prove that he is guilty, while not even noticing it.

Read More
574 Words | 3 Pages

The old man’s evil eye drove the narrator absolutely crazy. Everyone has that one thing in the world that they just cannot tolerate, it bugs them so much that it causes them to do things that they normally wouldn’t do, especially if they are mentally unstable. Obviously by the way the narrator thought “And now my anxiety seized me…. With a loud yell I opened the lantern and leaped into the room.” He couldn’t control himself and let his emotions get the best of him.

Read More
765 Words | 4 Pages

The narrator shows signs of insanity in his actions, behaviour, drive, and actions. In the short story by, Edgar Allan Poe, it is evident that the natator is insane because of his delusions and impulsive behaviour. To begin with, the narrator shows clear signs of

Read More
560 Words | 3 Pages

He refers to himself as Death, implying he has all knowledge and power over the old man. The reader becomes filled with dread as the man patiently waits to kill. The imagery portrayed in “The Tell-tale Heart” increases the demented tone that the narrator projects as the main character waits to strangle the old man. Every night, for a week, the murderer would “look in” upon the victim as he slept.

Read More
684 Words | 3 Pages

The comment the short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe makes about the theme of fear and desperation is that it can literally drive us insane. Poe uses an unreliable narrator to create suspense in describing the killing of an old man. Throughout the story, the narrator insists that he is not mad and tries to convince the reader of his sanity. The narrator first mentions that he does not know what led him to decide to kill the old man as he “loved the old man”, but comes to realize that it must have been his blind eye, “I think it was his eye! Yes, it was a snare!

Read More
796 Words | 4 Pages

He kept calm longer than an insane person when the police was asking him questions and when he heard the heartbeat. Until, he couldn’t keep calm and admitted his crimes. A sane person is calm, while an insane person would ramble on and on, keeping the story going on for longer, an insane person wouldn’t keep calm like he (the narrator)

Read More
557 Words | 3 Pages

One sign of the narrator being insane is that he has impulsive behavior. For example, the narrator says, “First of all, I dismembered the corpse, I cut off the head, and the arms, and the legs, or … works as well” (12). This means that he cut off the body without thinking about it beforehand. Furthermore, the narrator also says that he did not just leave the body there, but hid it too. All of this matters because it was a very sudden action

Read More
539 Words | 3 Pages

“Insanity is the state of being seriously ill;madness. ”(The Urban Dictionary) In fact, Edgar Allan Poe states this in “The Tell Tale Heart” Edgar suggests this when he writes “Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees-very gradually-I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever(Poe pg.203).” There is no doubt the narrator of this story is insane. In fact, he expresses his insanity while believing he is sane.

Read More
180 Words | 1 Pages

Not anyone can tell of the unknown narrator’s lunacy at first in the short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart.” The unknown narrator is mentally unstable because of this made his senses exceptionally sensitive. At the time, he lived with the Old Man, the unknown narrator had so much love for this old man, but it was his eye…his pale and blue eye that drove him to madness. It was every night where the unknown narrator would check on him, but it was the Old Man’s eye that irked him. It was on the eight night, when the Old Man awoke in fear because of the unknown narrator had caused him to have a fright, and at his final moments alive the unknown narrator kills with a mattress and hacks his head and arms off and puts the body pieces underneath the floor

Read More
1395 Words | 6 Pages

The Tell-Tale Heart written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1843 is about a man who claims he is not insane but only nervous. In turn, he tells a story to defend his sanity, in which he confesses to have killed an old man. He claims that his ambition was neither passion nor greed for money, but actually uneasiness of the old man’s pale blue eyes. He continues to insist that he isn’t mad because of his calm and collected actions. Even though he is a murderer, he claims that his composed actions aren’t ones of a psychopath.

Read More
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

Read More
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.

Read More
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

Read More

More about Paranoia In The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

Related Topics

Open Document