When people get hurt or mad, sometimes they lash out right? It is only human nature, however, it is when the pain consumes them that they can find a certain evil in it. In Roald Dahl's "Lamb to the Slaughter" and Edgar Allan Poe's "A Tell Tale Heart" the idea of potential evil within human nature is very clearly present. First off, Mary Maloney is heartbroken after being told that her husband wants to leave her. This brings out the worst in her. Secondly, the Unknown Narrator drives himself mad by obsessing over a glass eye. It is through emotion and thoughts that allow people to see past a pretty little face and a stranger, like in "Lamb to the slaughter".
Mary Maloney is your everyday average housewife, but like all people, we have emotions
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To begin with, after hearing from her husband that he wanted to leave her, Mary tried to pretend like nothing happened because she did not want a broken heart. Dahl writes, "Her first instinct [is] not to believe any of it. To reject it all. It [occurs] to her that perhaps he [didn't] even speak" (116). Mary did not want to get hurt so she tries to convince herself that it was not real. No one wants to get hurt but, it almost seems selfish that she would not let him go. Gradually, her husband begins to insist on leaving, so with all her feelings bottled up inside, like a volcano, Mary erupts. She lashes out just as anyone would, but her emotions, as strong as they were, led her to the point of actually killing her husband. It describes her actions when Dahl says, "Mary Maloney simply [walks] up behind him and without a pause she [swings] a big frozen leg of lamb high in the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head" (116). Mary did not think, she did not stop from swinging that lamb. She had no control over …show more content…
Firstly, the Unknown Narrator was a mad man. There was something wrong in his mind. He did not admit to the fact that he was insane and denial can truly be an evil thing. Poe states, "TRUE! Nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but why will you say that I'm mad" (1). Think of a mental institution, sometimes there will be people screaming for their freedom, belting at the top of their lungs that they are fine, that they are not insane, but it is a disease, inside and out. Next, there is the fact that the Narrator is blinded by his hatred of the man's eye so much that he wants to kill the man, even though the Narrator admits he loves the old man. The Narrator states, "I loved the old man. He [has] never wronged me. He [has] never given me an insult. For his gold I [have] no desire. I think it [is] his eye" (Poe 1). He is so focused on his hate for the eye to the point where he wants to get rid of it, for good. This leads me to my final point where he kills the man. The voices in his head drove him to the point of no return. It was all over just as he says, "The old man [is] dead. I [remove] the bed and [examine] the corpse. Yes he [is] stone, stone dead. I [place] my hand upon the heart and [hold] it there many minutes. There [is] no pulsation. He [is] stone dead. His eye
behavior.” Based on the text you can see him as mentally insane because in paragraph 16 Poe writes how the murderer, says,”. . . I fancied a ringing in my ears. . .” This is after the narrator killed the old man. He couldn’t tell if the old man's heart was still pumping or if he was hearing something. The narrator couldn't tell what was fake and what was happening. The narrator can be betrayed as a mentally insane person based on both the definition and the text.
Poe’s character is clearly unwell from the beginning. The idea of the protagonist conflicting with something as mundane as an “Evil eye” suggest that the narrator may be a bit unstable, however the extent of that instability is not fleshed out until later. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” the violence is carried out against the
The narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” murders an elderly man because he is fearful of the man’s “evil eye.” “He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Poe 37). The narrator explains that he is haunted by the man’s eye and the only way to
Poe's narrator sees that he is a Master with good powers of observation.” There are some psychological issues with the narrator, there are instances where the narrator tells the reader if they think he is a mad man. “Why will you say I am mad” (Poe) the narrator is empathizing that as the reader, they are the ones who are wrong. The narrator believes that he is right; therefore, the heart beating and the eye watching him proves to him that he is not psychotic. While as the reader, they know that him murdering an innocent old man based upon his eye is in fact
The narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator realizes that he absences a reason for killing the old man he lives with. He even starts to admit having to love the man. He states, “There was no reason for what I did. I did not hate the old man; I even loved him. He had never hurt me. I did not want his money. I think it was his eye” (Poe 64). Psychosis is seen in the difficult rationality the narrator uses to defend his murder. The logic the narrator provides is that he thinks the desire to murder the old man results from the man’s eye, which bothers him. He says, “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 65). The fact that by this man’s eye is what makes him very angry is such a irrelevant reason for the narrator to kill him. This proves that he is not mentally stable, anyone in their right state of mind would not want to commit such a crime due to an irritation of someone’s eye. This represents the idea that this narrator expresses his complete lack of sanity through the premeditation and planning he put into committing the murder. In the beginning of the story, he says “vulture eye” giving the impression that he is uncertain that the eye is the reason for the murder, he also says how he thinks it’s the eye, he uses past tense as opposed to declaring with certainty that this is why the killing of the man. This shows the contrast to how as a sane person would be sure that this is their reason for killing another person before committing.
The Narrator was much more physical when it came to killing the old man. Poe writes “In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him.” (404). The Narrator kept the bed over the old man until he could no longer hear a heart beat.... ...
An additional view point of the story could be from a woman. A female reading Lamb to the Slaughter would most likely side with Mary Maloney. Dahl starts the story describing Mary’s behavior before her husbands’ arrival. She sits ...
The narrator loved the old man, he had nothing against the poor old man. (Poe,pg 104) As the narrator says, “I loved the old”. If the narrator had nothing against the old man, why did he murder him? My client murdered the old man because he was hallucinating. A normal person wouldn’t murder someone if they don’t have anything against them. He was also hallucinating because a typical person wouldn’t murder another human because of their eye. The narrator declares (Poe,pg 104) “for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye”. This reason of murdering someone is not equitable. In addition, by the end of the story the narrator acts as if he is hallucinating. “I know grew very pale...Yet the sound increased-and what could I do?...It grew louder-louder!” Obviously this was inside the narrator’s head, the police officers couldn’t hear the heart beating because the narrator spieled (Poe,pg 107) “the officers heard it not”. The narrator also declares (Poe,pg 107) “that sound would be heard by a neighbour”. This quote confirms my client also thought that the neighbours will hear the heartbeat, that was inside his head. My client took these major steps because he was hallucinating the whole time. These hallucinations prove his insanity.
Mary commits cold blooded murder with a big, frozen, leg of lamb in the back of the head. This is a very dark side to her, especially when previously it stated she waited happily for her husband to come home. This shows how people can have a secret about them that you might never know. Mary is a prime example of this because she murdered her husband and future father of her child. This shows how people can reveal a dark side to them that you may have never knew
First, Poe suggests the narrator is insane by his assertions of sanity. For example, the narrator declares because he planned the murder so expertly he could not be insane. He says, "Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen how wisely I proceeded-with what caution-with what foresight-with what dissimulation I went to work!" In addition, every night at midnight the narrator slowly went into the room of the old man. He claims this was done so wisely that he could not be insane. The narrator thinks that if a murder is carefully planned then the murderer is not insane. Also, the narrator claims he suffers from over acuteness of the senses. Regarding the sound of the old man's beating heart, the narrator says, "And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses? --now, I say, there came to my ears a low dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton". The narrator claims he is not imagining the sound but he is hearing it because his senses are so sharp. The narrator believes he is justified in killing the old man because the man has an Evil Eye. The narrator claims the old man's eye made his blood run cold and the eye looked as if it belonged to a vulture. Poe shows the narrator is insane...
Poe has given his narrator in “The Tell Tale Heart” multiple currently diagnosable psychological disorders: bipolarity, obsessive compulsive disorder, psychopathy, paranoia. Although he is a psychopath by Hare’s definition, among the disorders, the narrator’s sense of fear is overwhelmingly the most motivating. On a first reading, it might seem that the narrator committed murder because of his unjustified hatred towards the victim, or more specifically, the victim’s “evil eye.” And later, he confesses to his crime because of the overwhelming guilt he feels which causes him to hear the beating of the dead man’s heart. However, as a psychopath, the narrator is incapable of feeling guilt. I will demonstrate that it is not hatred toward what is outside of the self that drove the narrator to murder and confession but the hatred and the immense fear of the insane side of himself that drove him to such irrational actions.
Near the middle of the story we see Mary exhibit her bad sinister character; her personality and feelings suddenly change when she murders her own husband by hitting him at the back of the head with a frozen lamb leg. After denying all of Mary’s helpful deeds, Patrick told her to sit down so that he can tell her something serious; the story doesn’t tell us what he says to her but Mary suddenly changes after he tells her something, her “instinct was not to believe any of it” (Dahl 2). She just responded with “I’ll get the supper” (Dahl 2) and felt nothing of her body except for nausea and a desire to vomit. She went down the cellar, opened the freezer, grabbed a frozen leg of lamb, went back upstairs, came behind Patrick, and swung the big leg of lamb as hard as she could to the back of his head killing him. This act of sudden violence shows how much she has gone ...
The fixation on the old man's vulture-like eye forces the narrator to concoct a plan to eliminate the old man. The narrator confesses the sole reason for killing the old man is his eye: "Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees - very gradually - I made up my mind to rid myself of the eye for ever" (34). The narrator begins his tale of betrayal by trying to convince the reader he is not insane, but the reader quickly surmises the narrator indeed is out of control. The fact that the old man's eye is the only motivation to murder proves the narrator is so mentally unstable that he must search for justification to kill. In his mind, he rationalizes murder with his own unreasonable fear of the eye.
Now, why would the narrator imply that he loves the old man when he plots to kill him? Particularly, if the narrator was sane, he wouldn’t love someone he was about to kill for something that isn’t worth killing for, it doesn’t make sense to kill someone because of the color of their eyes. The narrator is somewhat similar to a spider, he loves the old man, then he kills him. Moreover, Poe uses symbolism in The Tell Tale Heart to demonstrate right from wrong. One point of symbolism was the fact that the old man was killed in his own bed.
To begin the story Poe has a man who sets the scenery. The man sounds like he has a sound mind. But the narrator is trying to build his case for his sanity. The idea of the obsession that the narrator has with the eye of his employer builds to the question of whether or not this was a sign of a man who has an unstable mind or is it all just a ploy to get away with murder.