The Tell Tale Heart Mental Illness

Andre Santos
Ms. Semler
Early American Literature
6 June 2023

The Three Illnesses of the Unknown Character
“The Tell-Tale Heart,” is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, in which an unidentified character admits to murdering an elderly man, inspired by his fixation with the elderly man's vulture-like eye and tortured by guilt. The narrator becomes so fixated on the old man's eye that he kills him and hides him under the flooring of his house. Later, he goes to jail because he thinks he can hear the old man's heart beating beneath the floorboards. The unknown narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart,” will be diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, paranoid personality disorder, and acute stress disorder.
To begin, the unidentified narrator

According to my.clevelandclinic.org, “Paranoid personality disorder (PPD) is a mental health condition marked by a long-term pattern of distrust and suspicion of others without adequate reason to be suspicious” (Cleveland Clinic). The narrator is fascinated by the old man's eye throughout the novel, misinterpreting it as malevolent and viewing it as a threat to himself without proper reasoning. For example, the narrator states, “When the old man looked at me with his vulture eye a cold feeling went up and down my back; even my blood became cold. And so, I finally decided I had to kill the old man and close that eye forever!” (Poe 1). The narrator is obsessed with the old man’s eye, perceiving it as evil and a threat to his well-being. The narrator's decision to kill the old man in order to permanently remove the eye, reveals his severe paranoia and the extent he is willing to go to protect himself from perceived danger. This shows that the unknown narrator has a paranoid personality disorder (PPD) because of the distrust and suspicion he has over the old man's eye, which compelled him to kill the innocent

According to my.clevelandclinic.org, “It involves stress responses including Anxiety; Intense fear or helplessness; experiencing flashbacks or nightmare; feeling numb or detached from one's body; Avoiding situations, places or other reminders related to the traumatic event” (Cleveland Clinic). Throughout the story, the narrator expresses a sense of helplessness because of his obsession with the eye. He feels forced to act on his fear and eliminate the threat because he believes he has no other choice. For example the author states, “It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold, I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture—a pale blue eye, with a film over it” (Poe 1). In this quote, the narrator explains that his choice for killing the old man wasn't driven by personal hatred or passion. He admits that the old man never mistreated or humiliated him. Instead, he blames his compulsion on the old man’s eye. This shows that the narrator has acute stress disorder (ASD) due to his concentration on the eye and the psychological pain he was experiencing drove him to commit the crimes he