In Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrator should not be guilty by reason of insanity. “Insanity Defense” states that a man is innocent by means of insanity if he has committed the crime because he is “unable to control his impulses” as a result of mental disease (“Insanity Defense” 1). Similarly, the narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” viewed the old man’s “pale blue eye, with a film over it” with hatred (Poe 1). When the old man’s eye looked upon the narrator, he would uncontrollably increase in fury and anger. This led the narrator to “[make] up [his] mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid [him]self of the eye forever” (Poe 1).
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.
Demonic Possession Edgar Allan Poe is regarded as one of the greatest writers of all time, writing many of some America’s most well known stories. “A Tell-Tale Heart” is a story narrated by a man who, is believed to have schizophrenia and kills an innocent old man merely because of his eye. Though there may be a different diagnosis for the murderer, the story is told in first person but referring to the past, meaning that the narrator may be telling someone else. Throughout the story, the narrator shows a few strange actions. Such as how; the perspective in which the story is being told, the narrator strangely confesses in a loud and expressive way, the old man’s eye being the only reason as to why the narrator would want to kill him, the
Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that affects they way a person acts, think, and sees the world. The narrator from “The Tell-Tale Heart” acted very weirdly and had thoughts that no ordinary person would think. If a person has this disorder they usually act out in violence and have hallucinations. The narrator would believe things that were not there and he had evil thoughts of doing the unexpected. The narrator from “The Tell-Tale Heart” is schizophrenic because he acts out in violence and has hallucinations of things that didn’t even exist.
Borderline Personality Disorder is a mental disability that causes a person unstable moods, intense emotional responses, “out of body” experiences, psychotic episodes, and trouble regulating emotion. The effects of this disorder can sometimes lead to violence if the disease is not addressed and treated. Due to an overwhelming amount of evidence from the story, it becomes crystal clear that the main character of the story by Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell tale Heart suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder, a form of insanity. In the story, the main character murders an old man that he is supposed to be caring for, only because the man’s eye irks our protagonist. The protagonist’s insanity is evidenced by his unstable relationships, and his disconnection from reality.
In Edgar Allen Poe’s “A Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrator exhibits many traits of schizophrenia. Throughout the story, a man is terrorized by the eye of an old man and when he can no longer can take looking at the eye, he decides to kill him. He hides his body under the floorboards of their house and when officers come to search the house, they do not find anything, making the narrator overconfident in his plan. Guilt builds up and the man eventually cannot take the noise that he hears and confesses to killing the old man in front of the officers. Many actions of the man prove to be symptoms of schizophrenia.
The conscience hearts Someone who is insane shows his behaviors or actions that does not make logical sense. You need a link between the narrator 's insanity. In Edgar Allan Poe 's "The Tell-Tale Heart" we hear a retelling the narrator 's action to murdering the old man. Through these actions I learned that the narrator had a sensitivity issue towards the old man 's eye. Poe creates an unreliable narrator because the narrator presents his sensitivity and obsession with details as proof of clarity of his sanity, and the narrators obsession shows his madness.
Paranoid Schizophrenia is a mental disorder in which a person distrusts a person based on the delusions and hallucinations they experience. “Poe’s tale has attracted the attention of numerous critics, who have discussed its various aspects through diversified approaches, especially psychoanalysis, since the mid-twentieth century. ”(Shen, 327-28). The Tell-Tale Heart is a short story by Edgar Allen Poe that tells the story of an unnamed narrator who plots to kill his roommate because of his “Evil Eye”; the story later reveals how his insanity influences his downfall.
Insanity is a disease capable of making a person lose control of themselves. On the other hand, sanity is when a person is what others call “normal”. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe the narrator kills a man and he is confessing to the cops about it. He confesses how long the murder took and what he did each night and how he executed the murder. However, the narrator is not guilty because of the reason of insanity.
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that causes the sufferer to hear voices that are not actually there or experience paranoia. The narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” hears the sound of a dead man’s heart beat: “I admit the deed! -tear up the planks! -here, here! -it is the beating of his hideous heart!”
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
The Tell-Tale Heart Argumentative Paragraph In the story, “ The Tell-Tale Heart ,” Poe gives ideas which could prove that the narrator is criminally insane. The narrator could be named mad for some of his many actions and thoughts. The facts supporting this include: the defendant killed the old man over his “evil eye”, he brutally murdered the man and dismembered his body, he has to remind himself that he isn’t mad even though he committed murder, and states that he hears the dead man's heartbeat get louder and louder until he confesses murder. To begin with, the defendant kills the old man he lived with over his “evil” eye. He states that it gets to him, and drives him to eventually, after the 8th night, kill him.
Unsoundness Of Mind.. Insanity is defined in many ways. It’s all up to the person and their point of view. The actual definition of insanity is “a mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior. Insanity is distinguished from low intelligence or mental deficiency due to age or injury.” (via http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=979) The narrator from the short story “The Tell Tale Heart” is a lot of things.
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.
The narrator of “The Tell-tale Heart” is a madman who does not believe he is insane but continues to show otherwise during the telling of how he kills the old man to police officers. After a week of planning the murder, he still did not find satisfactory because he could still hear the beating of the old man’s heart. Also, if one is not a madman then why would one commit such a crime just because of an eye. While the narrator explains the story of how and why he commits murder, one can conclude that some details are unrealistic throughout his story. Which leads him to come off as a psychopath because of the details and the reason behind killing the old man.
