A Tell-Tale Heart Literary Analysis

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“A Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe The unnamed narrator in “A Tell-Tale Heart,” written by Edgar Allan Poe shows symptoms of mental diseases that may have contributed to the plot of the story. Poe’s short stories tend to have a dark twist to them. The characters are a bit peculiar throughout the plot, which leads people to quarrel with the idea of the main figures having mental disorders. This story, in particular, shows the narrator going through odd scenes. This person shows signs of intermittent explosive disorder, schizophrenia, and psychopathic tendencies. Many points and actions he makes lead readers to believe these diagnoses. Throughout the story, the narrator explores different emotions and goes through things without deliberating …show more content…

Psychopathic personalities are defined as people who have manipulative nature. They can easily gain people’s trust yet have no real connection to them (Bonn, 2014). The narrator shows many signs of this disorder from not feeling the “correct” emotions after committing a murder to him putting on a great facade when the police came to investigate. He easily wins the police over by putting on a charming identity and seemingly pushing out the fact that he just killed and hid a person’s body. The narrator even describes that the police were satisfied, “My manner had convinced them. I was singularly at ease. They sat, and while I answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things” (Poe,1843). Even after getting caught and going crazy, he still believes that he did a good deed for the world and somehow convinced himself that he isn’t a madman. The killer probably would have gotten away with it without showing a sign if it had not been for the ringing in his ears. The man didn’t care one bit for the man and didn’t shed a single tear over losing his innocence. That, in many circumstances, shows that the narrator may have psychopathic

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