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The Theme Of Insanity In Edgar Allan Poe's Tell-Tale Heart

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Insanity gets the best of us. It makes even the most innocent commit heinous acts. The acts would be explained in Edgar Allan Poe's “Tell-Tale Heart”. This man was definitely insane with his stalking, manipulating, and killing the elderly man. But why? Why would he change from loving the old man to wanting to kill him? Was it his white eye? Or just having to bear serve under the old man. Some of these facts that we could take into account to describe his mental state: The symbolism of objects throughout the short story that have left impacts, the imagery which makes people think about what some of the moments mean, and some kind of summary of his mental state (Character Development). Objects can tell a lot about a person. But does it describe how healthy his mind is..? Of course it does. The vulture eye, the eye which made the man tremble in fear at the sight of it. This was the main reason for the murderous act. “And so, I finally decided I had to kill the old man and close that eye forever!” (Poe Lines 25-26). It symbolised the true meaning of fear and the thought that no one should ever gaze into that eye. The Lantern is also something big …show more content…

The story goes that this man was a dear friend to the old man and he absolutely loved him. Then we heard about his eye. You can slowly picture him falling down a hole of the mind and dragging down to the deepest parts where the darkest thoughts are. And he found a specific treasure chest. That would be the thought to kill the old man in cold blood. After he killed the old man, then said cops came in and he started to snap! Argh! He just dug up the body and showed it to the cops! He’s mad! The man also changed as well! He went from a happy old dude to a paranoid victim, which he was. These 2 then came together someone like a magnet, except one of the magnets had some kind of weapon and the other one was unsuspicious of the other, but was suspicious of

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The definition of Legal insanity is that at the time of the crime, the killer couldn’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy, right from wrong, and/or could not control his/her behavior. The killer in “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe is not legally insane. The killer is not insane because of the killer having controlled behavior when planning the murder, hiding the body because the killer knows what the killer did was wrong, and the killer acted crazy and freaked out around the police after the crime was committed. For instance, a reason the killer is not insane is the killer could control the killer’s behavior.

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107 Words | 1 Pages

In Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” suspense is created through the reoccurring use of repetition which, conjures up feelings of unease in the readers. The speaker is clearly unstable. The speaker who is “nervous-very,very dreadfully nervous”(1) throughout the story repeatedly asks the reader “How, then, am I mad?”(1), then goes on to justify his actions. The reader understands that the fear in the speaker is building up, but do not know the reason why. With an unstable speaker the readers are not certain if what is being told is true or just in the speaker’s mind.

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275 Words | 2 Pages

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).

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844 Words | 4 Pages

Poe uses symbolism a lot in his stories to make his writing have a more eerie feeling. ”The Tell-Tale Heart” and “Masque of Red Death” both have symbols that induce fear into the main characters hearts. In The Tell-Tale Heart Poe writes “...for it was no the old man who vexed me but his evil eye “(75).The narrator kills an innocent old man for that hr thought the old man's eyes were judging. Although the old man just had cataracts ,the narrator could not stand the man for his eye he compared looked as vulture's eye. The narrator was afraid of this old man and his “evil eye”.

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960 Words | 4 Pages

First-Degree Murder is the most serious crime that can be committed, punishable by the death penalty. Once someone commits this crime, they are forever known as a dangerous and terrible person. The decision to murder someone is usually conscious, but in some occasions the suspect can plead innocent for reasons of temporary insanity. In the short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, a man decided to murder his neighbor because he was scared of the neighbor’s eye. When the police came to interrogate him, the man heard a heartbeat in his head.

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560 Words | 3 Pages

The man says, “You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing.” Tying in with the arrogant tones as well, the man has a very dark mind and the readers get a glimpse of his thought train through first person. He explains he needs to “take the life of the old man and thus rid myself of the eye forever.” No sane person would kill over a color of an eye, but as he describes the old man’s eye, the audience begins to understand why he takes the life of the old man.

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338 Words | 2 Pages

At the beginning of the story the narrator says that “I made up my mind to take the life of the old man and thus rid myself of the eye forever!” (Poe 3). This shows that he is mentally insane

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791 Words | 4 Pages

Yes, it was this He had the eye of a vulture.” (page 381, Poe) The man had thought to kill the man because of the look of his eye, though he said he loved the old man because he had never wronged him. For a prosecutor that wants to put him in an institute, they could argue that he was sick and had a disease that sharpened his sense to destroy. For instance, while he was planning to kill the old man he had felt an awful drumming, a hellish tattoo.

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591 Words | 3 Pages

Human nature is the feelings, attributes, and behavioral traits that all humans share. Many works of fiction use multiple ways to convey messages that readers can relate to, to help them have an extensive understanding of the story. Since human nature is found all throughout society, authors incorporate actions that the characters take, which teaches people to think before they act. Different fictional books often reveal elements of human nature through a conflict between the characters during a certain event in a story. In “The Possibility of Evil, the main character, Miss Strangeworth, gave people her opinions on different topics by writing mean letters to the townspeople because she thought “there was so much evil in people”, eventually

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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.

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234 Words | 1 Pages

Second of all he killed the old man, not because he did not like the old man but, because he did not like his eye. Evidence of this is shown on paragraph 2 when the narrator says “I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire.

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1024 Words | 5 Pages

Committing murder sometimes seems like the most logical thing to do. Maybe something, such as a physical deficiency, can annoy a person so much that it drive them to the person insane to the point he or she commits murder. This is the case in Edgar Allen Poe's short story “ The Tell-Tale Heart.” The narrator, who is unknown, explains to the audience how something as simple as a physical deficiency drive him to commit murder. The narrator's emotional state throughout the story is quite interesting.

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928 Words | 4 Pages

To properly determine whether or not the narrator in Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell Tale Heart” is insane a definition of insanity must be brought to light; possible explanations for his transgression must be examined, and the scope of information that has been provided must be understood for what it is. To understand if someone is insane or not, American society must lay bare a universal definition for insanity. As a whole, society today does not shy away from using words such as insane or crazy. This careless use of words leads to the definitions becoming less clear.

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1164 Words | 5 Pages

The narrator 's sole reason for such murder is purely in his disturbed mind, as he develops an obsession with the old man 's eye and the plot unfolds from here where his insanity augments with the events of the story. Due to Poe’s illustrative language, various evidence can be presented to confirm the state of mind of the narrator, including, his obsession with the old man’s eye, his precision in committing the impeccable crime and finally the sound of the man’s beating heart solely inside his head. Perhaps it all started with the narrator’s obsession with the man’s “vulture eye” since he believes the eye of being evil, proving the insanity he is gravely trying to deny “I think it was

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821 Words | 4 Pages

No sane person would think of doing such a thing, they would just avoid seeing the old man. Instead, the narrator chooses to kill the old man which does not make sense to the average, but to him, this is the only way to relieve himself of the eye. As the narrator craziness increases throughout the story, one can see how the eye of the old

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