ipl-logo

Sane In The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

770 Words4 Pages

The tell-tale of a sane but crazy heart. Insane, sane, or maybe just very odd. That is for the reader to decide. The Tell-Tale Heart story takes a look into the mind of a man who executes the plan of killing an old man because of his eye. The unnamed narrator’s ability to understand fantasy from reality when hiding the body to not get caught and manage all his personal affairs in his life like when he continued to maintain the friendship with the old man even when he wanted to kill him, proves he is sane. Edgar Allan Poe’s horror, short story, “The Tell Tale Heart” outlines the narrator’s sanity by his ability to tell fantasy from reality and manage all his personal affairs. The first way that the narrator demonstrates his sanity is through …show more content…

He oddly, disposed of the body very easily, like he had done before, showing clear management skills. The second way the narrator proves he is sane is through his management of personal affairs, when he was kinder to the old man than ever before on the week, he planned to kill him. The narrator managed to continue being kind to the old man even when knowing he was plotting to kill him: “I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him” (Poe 104). The narrator’s ability to manage how he was feeling towards the old man shows he has proper social skills and knows how to hide his emotions when needed. Whereas an insane person would not be able to control their emotions. The narrator’s efficient ability to manage his personal affairs is why he was able to kill the old man so easily. The narrator’s ability to tell fantasy from reality and manage his personal affairs, outlines his sanity throughout the horror, short, story “The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe. The narrator is able to tell both his fantasies from reality and manage his personal affairs by hiding the body to avoid getting caught and maintain his relationship with the old man even when planning to kill

Show More
Related

Interprettive Essay: The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

728 Words | 3 Pages

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!

Read More

Tell-Tale Heart: Text Dependent Analysis

482 Words | 2 Pages

The narrator in Edgar Allen Poe’ s story, Tell Tale Heart perfectly shows what it’s like for a person to be insane. He tells a story that he believes actually happened. The narrator claims the he killed an old man that he truly loved. He loved the old man but, the narrator thought his eye is evil. When he looked at the old man’s eye the narrator felt anger.

Read More

The Tell-Tale Heart Insanity

908 Words | 4 Pages

While reading “The Tell-Tale Heart” written by Edgar Allen Poe, I could not help but to notice the mental conflict the narrator portrayed. Through obvious statements from the narrator and my own insinuations, I believe it is safe to conclude that the narrator’s claim to sanity was unreliable and compromised due to his/her mental state. The narrator’s attempt to rationalize his rational behavior in the end caused him to be looked at as a madman, we see this by how “wisely” he executed and handled the old man’s body after killing him, and how his “sharpened senses” as he described early in the poem, ultimately was the reason why he confessed to his crime. The story begins with how the narrator professes, “I loved the old man” and “He never wronged me”, then reveals how he was obsessed with the old man’s eye; “The eye of

Read More

Insanity In The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

561 Words | 3 Pages

“The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe is a short story written in 1843. The story is told in the first person by a narrator who wants to kill an old man because he doesn’t like the look of his eyes. He makes a careful plan to kill him, thinking that this plan proves his sanity while the details of the plan prove that he is insane. Throughout the story, there is evidence to prove that the narrator is mentally ill. Perhaps the most convincing evidence to prove the narrator is insane is that his motive for murder is simply not liking the looks of the old man's eye.

Read More

Insanity In The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

922 Words | 4 Pages

Also, the narrator states “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. Ha! - would a madman have been as wise as this” (Poe 3)? It is identifiable that even as the narrator brags about himself, he still worries about whether or not the reader thinks that he is a madman, for it is clearly and most definitely the truth. He also places substantial emphasis on his wisdom in dealing with the disposal of the body that he does not affiliate it with the atrocity of the crime. Therefore, he is unable to decipher the difference between right and wrong and cannot be held accountable for his acts due to

Read More

The Unreliable Narrator In The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

917 Words | 4 Pages

This also reveals that the murder of the old man made the narrator ’s hallucinations worse. Gargano says it this way: “Poe so manipulates the action that the murder, instead of freeing the narrator, is shown to heighten his agony and intensify his delusions” (179). The narrator’s guilt and paranoia make his already unwell mind deteriorate even more. In short, Poe’s usage of the reader’s mood highlights the narrator’s neurotic tendencies and the shows how his remorse leads to further self-destructiveness.

Read More

How Does Poe's Use Of Mental Illness

419 Words | 2 Pages

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

Read More

The Theme Of Insanity In Poe's The Tell Tale Heart

1215 Words | 5 Pages

“The Tell Tale Heart” is a story, on the most fundamental level, of conflict. There is a mental conflict inside the narrator himself (expecting the narrator is male). Through clear clues and explanations, Poe cautions the reader to the mental condition of the narrator, which is insanity. The insanity is portrayed as an obsession (with the old man 's eye), which thus leads to loss of control and in the long run outcomes in violence. At last, the narrator tells his story of killing his housemate.

Read More

How Does Poe Create Fear In The Tell Tale Heart

1334 Words | 6 Pages

“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe is an enthralling and terrifying tale of an insane and paranoid Narrator suffocating his own roommate in his sleep. Throughout the story, fear and dread is a common theme. At every twist and turn Poe creates a sense of uneasiness. Using this, Edgar Allen creates fear and dread through the Characters, Conflict, and Suspense, making the “The Tell-Tale Heart” a scary, and captivating story. Edgar Allen Poe creates fear and dread in “The Tell-Tale Heart” through his characters, more specifically the Narrator.

Read More

Madness And Obsession In Tell-Tale Heart

401 Words | 2 Pages

In the, Tell-tale Heart, Poe’s central ideas of madness and obsession are supported by his use of point-of-view, repetition, and punctuation. Poe’s use of a first- person point of view helps the readers understand the central idea of madness. The narrator states, “How then, am I mad? ... observe how healthily-how calmly I can tell you the whole story”. By allowing the readers into the narrators mind, they can clearly notice that the narrator is insane and unstable.

Read More

A Tell-Tale Heart Insane

755 Words | 4 Pages

A Tell Tale Heart A person suffering from his inner self can be found to indulge in inhumane actions in the story “A Tell Tale heart”. The author is suffering from different kinds of obsessions which he tries to hide from the audience in the story in order to prove his sanity. In most of the part of the story, Poe is trying to convince the readers that he is not insane. However, his actions and reactions to various things in the story shows his level of insanity.

Read More

Suspense In The Tell Tale Heart

1109 Words | 5 Pages

There are times in life where people do commit a small mistake, or a huge crime, but what really matters is if one will listen to their conscience. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, the main character lives with an old man who has an eye that “resembled that of a vulture--a pale blue eye, with a film over it.” The story revolves around the main character’s obsession over the eye, and how he got rid of it-- by murdering the old man. Towards the end of the story, the young man confesses to the police about his insane stunt after they searched his house. In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Edgar Allan Poe focused on having the reader know more than the secondary character, using description, and using a first-person narrator, to build suspense.

Read More

The Tell Tale Heart Analysis Essay

1226 Words | 5 Pages

The Tell-Tale Heart: Analysis Poe is best known as the author of horror and suspense. The dark- gothic element that surrounds his stories is enhanced even more with the appearance of multi-complex personalities which ‘move between the edge’ of normal and abnormal. One of his characters that represent this notion is the narrator and main character of his well-known story the “Tell-Tale Heart”. His psychological complexity and his narrative technique immediately captivates the audience attention who ‘struggles’ to come to some conclusion about the narrator’s state of mind. The narrator’s psychological instability is visible through the tone, the syntax and the constant alleviation between sanity and insanity.

Read More

Rhetorical Techniques In The Tell Tale Heart

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

Examples Of Paranoia In The Tell Tale Heart

1164 Words | 5 Pages

Obsession, internal conflict, and underlying guilt are all aspects of being human but when it’s associated with paranoia and insanity it may be just the recipe for the perfect crime as perceived by Edger Allan Poe in “The Tell-Tale Heart”. Poe uses this as one of his shortest stories to discuss and provide an insight into the mind of the mentally ill, paranoia and the stages of mental detrition. The story 's action is depicted through the eyes of the unnamed delusional narrator. The other main character in the story is an old man whom the narrator apparently works for and resides in his house. The story opens off with the narrator trying to assure his sanity then proceeding to tell the tale of his crime, this shows a man deranged and hunted with a guilty conscience of his murderous act.

Read More

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

Open Document