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

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Annotated Bibliography Bynum, Paige. “Observe how healthily-how calmly i can tell you the whole story’ : Moral Insanity and Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’.” Literature and science are modes of expression. Eds. Frederick Amrine.Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989: 141-52. Rpt in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Anna S. Nesbitt. Vol. 34. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000. 273-77. Print. In this essay Bynum notes how Poe 's short story would have appealed to the audience of the time period it was written in. The essay gives examples of many court cases involving moral insanity. The mental disease was highly controversial during the nineteenth century. Hence, the audience during the 1840’s would be able to understand that the narrator of the story …show more content…

The short story is generally a study in human terror. Furthermore, the author explains Poe use of a particular style and technique, to not only create the mood of mystery, but to cause the reader to feel sympathy for the narrator. Poe makes a connection between the storyteller and reader with knowledge and literary craftsmanship. Kachur, Robert M. "Buried in the bedroom: bearing witness to incest in Poe 's 'The Tell-Tale Heart '." Mosaic [Winnipeg] 41.1 (2008): 43+. Academic OneFile. Web. 24 Sept. 2015. This essay agrees with the sexual developmental conflict theory, rather than social conflict theory in Poe’s short story. It explains how during the 19th century,when it was written, cases on sexual incest were kept quiet and discrete. This secrecy has kept the reader from viewing the old man as a perpetrator as well as a victim even a century and a half after Poe wrote the mysterious tale. This view brought a new perspective on the short story yet, provides excellent details and examples for support. Ki, Magdalen Wing-chi. "Ego-Evil and 'The Tell-Tale Heart '." Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature 61.1 (2008): 25+. Academic OneFile. Web. 24 Sept. …show more content…

Tucker gives prime examples of other stories by Poe containing the idea of the eye and compares them to the short story. He also discusses the prominent the role the eye plays in the short story and how the narrator in the end is not only betrayed by the beating of his own heart but by the all seeing eye of God. Poe Edgar Allan. “The Tell-Tale Heart.” The Ideal Reader 2nd Ed. 2012: ENC 1102 Communications 2. Eds. C.J Baker-Schverak. New York: McGraw-Hill 2012. 218 - 221. Print. The Tell-Tale Heart is a story about a man whom, plagued by mental disorder, takes the life of a man. The narrator claims to have love for the old man and insist that it is the old man 's vulture eye that he cannot stand. He watches the old man for seven nights before killing him, dismembering the body, and hiding the evidence. The narrator ends up confessing to his crime to police officers after he is driven mad by the beating of the, now dead, old man 's heart. Tunc, Tanfer. Encyclopedia of Themes in Literature. Ed. Jennifer Temple. 2nd ed. Vol. 3. New York: Facts On File, 2011. 880-883.

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