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The Narrator's Insanity In 'The Tell-Tale Heart'

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One in every five men are mad. The narrator of “The Tell Tale Heart” is a killer who claims to be sane. Some agree but most disagree. His actions have drawn most to believe he’s mad. The reasoning for most people thinking he’s insane is because for seven nights the caretaker, the narrator, stalks the homeowner, the old man,. “And every night around midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it - oh, so gently! And then when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern… I thrust in my head… I moved it slowly- very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man’s sleep. (poe, page 203)” The narrator’s action of watching the old man leep is evidence that he is stalking him. The definition of mad is not normal actions, with this evidentes we can prove the narrator is insane. …show more content…

He wasn’t planning on killing him that night but when the narrator’s finger slipped off the lander then the old man awoke. The room was pitch black in fear of robbers but the person he should have been afraid of was living with him. When the old man woke up the narrator saw his blind eye. The old man was killed not because he was a bad person or did anything wrong it was because of his blind eye. Another definition of insanity is “ something unreasonable or foolish” (merriam webster) and it was very unreasonable for the narrator to kill the old man over his blind eye therefore that's another example of his

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