Edgar Allan Poe, the creator of one of the most notorious short stories in gothic writing, “Tell-Tale Heart” develops a character that is struggling with schizophrenia and commits a murder. Although there is no concrete reason to why Poe wrote the short story, it is theorized that he wrote it due to the struggles he had in his life, he wanted to reflect the evil inside a human spirit. It is also theorized by Matthey Bynum “The average man tended to suspect deception in defense pleas of insanity, and newspapers often fanned these feelings. Thus by the time Poe wrote 'The Tell-Tale Heart', such trials were major events.” Because of the characters thoughts and actions, many scholars, like Tanfer Tunc, Susan Amper, Matthey Bynum (among others), have analyzed the character and his possible mental illness and case of schizophrenia.
“The Tell-Tale Heart” written in 1843 is a story that is narrated by a crazed man. Initially the character is driven absolutely mad by the presence of the “vulture eye” of an old man that he serves. Strategically planned he decides to kill the man when he realizes he can no longer handle seeing his eye daily. Patiently for 8 nights he watches the old man sleep until he can muster up the courage of actually murdering him. Coincidentally the old man wakes up when the narrator ends up killing him with little struggle. After doing so, he precedes to takes him apart limb by limb, and hides it under the floor of the old man’s chamber. When the police shows up, he casually invites them in, and driven mad by the sound of the dead man’s heartbeat; he confesses his terrible deed to the officers.
Poe starts to develop the character (who is also the narrator) and he immediately allows the narrator to question his sani...
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...Poe created the character with many mental issues that are most (if not all) symptoms of schizophrenia.
Works cited
Amper, Susan. ""The Tell-Tale Heart"." Bloom's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 3 Mar. 2014
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Matthey 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"." Bloom's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 12 Apr. 2014
Tunc, Tanfer Emin. "cruelty in "The Tell-Tale Heart"." Bloom's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 12 Apr. 2014
Tunc, Tanfer Emin. "illness in "The Tell-Tale Heart"." Bloom's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 3 Mar. 2014
Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. "Poe, Edgar Allan." Bloom's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 12 Apr. 2014
“The Tell-Tale Heart” is a short story about a man who kills the old man next door. The
The “Tell-Tale Heart” is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe and serves as a testament to Poe’s ability to convey mental disability in an entertaining way. The story revolves around the unnamed narrator and old man, and the narrator’s desire to kill the old man for reasons that seem unexplainable and insane. After taking a more critical approach, it is evident that Poe’s story is a psychological tale of inner turmoil.
Chua, John. "An overview of 'The Tell-Tale Heart,'." Gale Online Encyclopedia. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 7 Dec. 2010.
Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Tell-Tale Heart." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 7th ed. New York: Longman, 1999. 33-37.
The. 15 March 2014. http://xroads.virginia.edu/drbr/wf_rose.html> Poe, Edgar Allan. The "Tell-Tale Heart." Skwire, David and Harvey S. Wiener.
...binson, E. Arthur. "Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart'." Twentieth Century Interpretations of Poe's Tales. ED. William L. Howarth. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1971. 94-102.
In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” the narrator attempts to assert his sanity while describing a murder he carefully planned and executed. Despite his claims that he is not mad, it is very obvious that his actions are a result of his mental disorder. Hollie Pritchard writes in her article, “it has been suggested that it is not the idea but the form of his madness that is of importance to the story” (144). There is evidence in the text to support that the narrator suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and was experiencing the active phase of said disease when the murder happened. The narrator’s actions in “The Tell-Tale Heart” are a result of him succumbing to his paranoid schizophrenia.
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.
The narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” has taken the time to meticulously plot. He sneaks nightly into the old man’s room preparing until he is ready to carry out his plans. His discontent lies...
Many people who have read “The Tell Tale Heart,” argue whether or not the narrator is sane or insane. Throughout this paper I have mentioned the main reasons for the narrator being sane. The narrator experienced guilt, he also was very wary executing the plan, and the intelligence level of his plan to murder the old
“The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe.” University of Virginia, n.d. Web. 27 March, 2014.
Through the first person narrator, Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" illustrates how man's imagination is capable of being so vivid that it profoundly affects people's lives. The manifestation of the narrator's imagination unconsciously plants seeds in his mind, and those seeds grow into an unmanageable situation for which there is no room for reason and which culminates in murder. The narrator takes care of an old man with whom the relationship is unclear, although the narrator's comment of "For his gold I had no desire" (Poe 34) lends itself to the fact that the old man may be a family member whose death would monetarily benefit the narrator. Moreover, the narrator also intimates a caring relationship when he says, "I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult" (34). The narrator's obsession with the old man's eye culminates in his own undoing as he is engulfed with internal conflict and his own transformation from confidence to guilt.
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.
Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Tell-Tale Heart." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 7th ed. New York: Longman, 1999. 33-37.
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.