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Psychological analysis of edgar allan poe
Psychological analysis of edgar allan poe
Edgar allan poe and psychology
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Within the stories written by Edgar Allan Poe have a similar theme that can be linked to his own life. The theme is that hatred can cause one to do bizarre things. Two stories that have this theme are “Tale Tell Heart” and “Cask of the Amontillado.” The bizarre thing that the narrator in the story, “Tell Tale Heart,” is him killing the old man for his one eye made him feel uncomfortable. In the text it stated, “ I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! 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 (pg. 138).” The narrator is explaining that he does not hate the old man just his vulture looking eye. In comparison to the narrator in the story, “Cask of Amontillado”, the narrator bizarre action was in a way burying his friend alive behind a brick wall that he made inside of his Catacomb. In the text it stated, …show more content…
Poe did not commit a murder but he had a crime of not paying back his debt. In the “Cask of Amontillado,” “ Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them.” The narrator’s crime was not revealed until centuries later. In Comparison in the “Tell Tale Heart” it stated, “Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! and now --again! --hark! louder! louder! louder! Louder! "Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! --tear up the planks! here, here!” In this the narrator through the fear of suspicion and the supposed beating of the old man’s heart that he revealed his crime to the police. Poe’s crime of his debt was clearly revealed to everyone that he had it and could barely pay it off at
Upon reading a little bit into the story the reader finds that the narrator likes the old man or rather doesn’t having anything against him, except for his eye. The pale blue eye was the focus point for his rage he hates but not the old man. How can anyone just hate someone’s eye without being mentally unstable? “I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture – a...
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
Edgar Allan Poe is known for some of the most horrifying stories ever written through out time. He worked with the natural world, animals, and weather to create chilling literature. Two most notable thrillers are “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Tell-Tale Heart”. Poe was infatuated with death, disfigurement, and dark characteristics of the world. He could mix characters, setting, theme,and mood in a way that readers are automatically drawn into reading. Both of these short stories have the same major aspects in common.
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.
In this particular story, Poe decided to write it in the first person narrative. This technique is used to get inside the main character's head and view his thoughts and are often exciting. The narrator in the Tell-Tale Heart is telling the story on how he killed the old man while pleading his sanity. To quote a phrase from the first paragraph, "The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily, how calmly, I can tell you the whole story." This shows that we are in his thou...
In each of Edgar Allen Poe's stories of murder and madness, he takes us inside the mind of the murderer from the time he begins until after the deed has been done. Poe gives us a point of view not common in works of horror and suspense: the killers. We read the thoughts and follow the actions of the killer as he plots and follows through with his victim?s demise. All three of his stories are alike, especially 'The Black Cat' and 'The Tell-Tale Heart.' However, I found that 'The Cask of Amontillado' differ more than any of the other two from each other. While the murderers in 'The Black Cat' and 'The Tell-Tale Heart' are motivated by their own insanity, the character in 'The Cask of Amontillado' is driven by pure, old-fashioned revenge and jealousy. A couple main details I noticed about all three tales is that each story is told in first person, and all of the main characters are male. Also, in the end of each of these short stories all men turn out to be no better, if not much worse, than they already were.
In "The Tell-Tale Heart", the storyteller tells of his torment. He is tormented by an old man's Evil Eye. The storyteller had no ill will against the old man himself, even saying that he loved him, but the old man's pale blue, filmy eye made his blood run cold. And when the storyteller couldn't take anymore of the Evil Eye looking at him, he said, "I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever." This is the start of the storyteller’s madness, and as the reader listens to what he says, the madness within the storyteller becomes very apparent.
Poe writes “The Tell Tale Heart” from the perspective of the murderer of the old man. When an author creates a situation where the central character tells his own account, the overall impact of the story is heightened. The narrator, in this story, adds to the overall effect of horror by continually stressing to the reader that he or she is not mad, and tries to convince us of that fact by how carefully this brutal crime was planned and executed. The point of view helps communicate that the theme is madness to the audience because from the beginning the narrator uses repetition, onomatopoeias, similes, hyperboles, metaphors and irony.
Edger Allan Poe is one of the most famous and controversial authors of many short stories and novels. He is generally known for his Gothic Genre that mainly deals with the darker elements of the human condition as well as the supernatural, including a feel of horror, supernatural, and darkness. Furthermore, elements like the setting should seem gloomy: rain, storms, etc. The tone and the felling of the story should be mysterious that will lead to suspense and fear. Poe is not like other authors who end their stories with a happy ending; rather the ending to his work is gruesome and usually does not give the reader closure. Due to his uniqueness of writing, critics placed him “in the first rank of American artist” (Rahn). Common themes of Poe’s work consist of murder, revenge, and insanity. “The Tell Tale-Heart” is one of his most popular Gothic writings where the narrator fights to prove his sanity rather his innocence.
At the end of “The Tell-Tale Heart”, Poe’s fascination with death is apparent when the narrator ruthlessly killed an old man with a disturbing eye, but felt so guilty that he confessed to the police. The narrator dismembered the old man’s body and hid them in the floor, confident that they were concealed. However, when the police came to investigate, the narrator heard a heart beating and began to crack under the pressure. Overcome with guilt, he confessed that he murdered him and pulled up the floorboards. The narrator exclaimed, “But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision!” (“Heart” 4). Although the narrator was calm and confident at first, the guilt he experienced drove him mad, causing...
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.
Does the narrator show weakness through this mental illness or is it a sophistical mind of a genius? This is the question that must be answered here. Throughout this discussion we will prove that the narrator is a man of a conscience mind and committed the crime of murder. Along with that we will expose Poe’s true significance of writing this short story, and how people were getting away with crime by justifying that they were insane.
It is fair to assume the old man and the narrator are neighbors in a mental institution. The “evil eye” and time in The Tell-Tale Heart are the main obsessions throughout the story. The narrator explains the eye by stating, “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…”(Poe 2). The eye of the old man drove him so insane that it lead him to kill a man he claimed to have loved. The “evil eye” is not only referring to the old man’s eye, but “I,” as in the narrator himself. This directly relates to the obsession with time that is often referred to throughout the story. The narrator believes the only way to beat time is to destroy himself. May explains in his analysis “The Tell-Tale Heart,” that “…to save the self from time by destroying the self is a paradox that the narrator can only deal with by displacing his need to destroy himself (the I) to a need to destroy the eye of the old man”(12). The narrator, in the end, destroys himself by killing the old...
The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe is a short story that dives into the mind of an insane man. The story only features five characters. There is an old man with a blue eye, the crazed killer, and three police. The story is narrated by the nameless murderer. It is his attempt to justify his behavior and to prove to the reader that he is not crazy. As the story goes on you come to the realization that he is actually insane. The characters in this story are complex, interesting, and elaborate.