Tell Tale Mind Analysis

The terms mental stability and psychotic only cut the surface of the characters in William Faulkner’s and Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories. The human mind is a powerful force; not seen by the naked eye that drives people to greatness or their worst downfalls. In tragedy, the mind can transport a person to an alternate reality that they have no control over. Emily, Faulkner’s main character in “A Rose for Emily” is no exception. The townspeople describe the Grierson family as people who live above their means. The Grierson’s see themselves above others and Emily’s father was to blame for her unmarried/childless life. The reader can see a glimpse into Emily’s mind twice. The first after her father’s death and again at the end of the work when

Poe’s character in “Tell-Tale Heart” offers an opportunity to see a mind that lives in an alternate state with only a few minor glimpses into reality. Poe shows a man fighting within himself for his own sanity and loses to paranoia. Emily and Poe’s character’s personal transformation takes them from reality to an alternate state of mind; where they lose their identities.

The power of words can steal the reality of another’s mind. In the beginning of the work Emily is a heartbroken daddy’s girl and in the end, she winds up sleeping with a corpse. The tone of “A Rose for Emily” is gossip and great sadness. The townspeople tell us about Emily’s life. There is no way to know the truth. All one can do is draw conclusions. During one point in the story the townspeople talk of Emily and Homer being unmarried and riding around town in a carriage and how inappropriate this was of her. The townspeople reach out to Emily’s family whom she has no contact with, to speak on their behalf. Then, when Emily purchases a men’s nightgown; they assume she married and are happy for her. Emily

Arrogance is that of an exaggeration of one’s own abilities or conceited. He believes he is well by ignoring the symptoms and spinning them in a manner to prove they have improved his state of mind. The tone is excitable due to his mental illness and the structure of the work and suspenseful because he leaves you hanging on every line. What will he do/say next? Poe offers a look into a sick man’s mind. How he planned it. Why (over an eye)? How he did it. Even the manner of which he took disposing of the old man’s body in a crude/ inhumane way. Then seeing his guilt overtake what was left of him. Poe reaches his audience on a darker personal level; going into the depths of the unknown: the power of the human mind and mental illness. In the first few lines, Poe’s character is trying to convince the reader that he is sane and his disease has not taken over his mind, but rather improved it. He has not quite come to terms with his illness, still in the denial stage. “The disease had sharpened my senses-not destroyed-not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute.” (Poe 37) “I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth,” with this he loses all credit to a healthy mental state (Poe 37). First, he is attempting to convince you that killing the old man was what he had to do. He is not mad. He had no choice. The man had an eye of a vulture. That eye became a trigger for this character. One