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Mental illness and the insanity defense
Psychological interpretation of tell tale heart
Mental illness and the insanity defense
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Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I am Olivia Johnson and today I am here to prove that this man was perfectly sane the entire time he killed the innocent old man. “ The night waned, and I worked hastily, out in silence. First of all I dismembered the corpse, I cut off the head and the arms and the legs.” This is a line that the narrator from “The Tell Tale Heart” (by Edgar Allan Poe) and how could someone insane give so much detail to every little move that they make. Many insane people forget what they did in the heat of the moment and clearly in the quote above this man has not forgot one thing that he did that night. Another line from “The Tell Tale Heart” (by Edgar Allan Poe) is “ I then replaced the boards so cleverly so cunningly that no human eye -- not even his -- could …show more content…
He cleverly hid the body parts which someone insane would not be able to think of something so smart in the heat of the moment. He knew exactly what he was doing the entire time and maybe even planned everything out so he wouldn’t get caught. Then, he also states “ And every night around midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it.” How could someone so “insane” do the same exact thing every single night and not forget. However, I know what you are thinking how can we prove to me that this man is actually ill I will tell you one thing how do we know he isn’t pretending. In the article “History of Some Sort” (by Dirk Deklien) two brothers killed a police officer, shot someone in an elevator, and a gun chase. On the day of the trial the two brothers tried to convince everyone that they were insane the whole time and couldn’t control their actions. The brothers barked, they howled, they even banged their head on the tables until the bled to prove that they were insane. How do we know that the man on trial today isn’t doing the exact same thing. That he is trying to trick everyone here and tell us he is
In the story The Tell Tale Heart by Edger Alan Poe, a murder mystery is given. The kind of murder where we know the narrator as the killer, but can't quite understand his purpose in doing so.
This stance fails to consider the reasoning why the author might be insane. If he was insane why would he pay attention so close to details. "I then took up three pieces of wood from the flooring, and placed his body parts under the room. I then replaced the wooden boards so well that no human eye not even his could have seen anything wrong". In summarization reader isn't looking at his thinking through the whole story.
In a time when all one has to do is say they hear voices to be labeled insane, by claiming the was hearing things made it very easy for the defendant to have an “excuse” to fall back on. Hearing voices is not the only thing that the defendant exaggerates on. He goes into great depth speaking of his sense of super hearing, for instance, being able to hear from both the heavens and from hell. “I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell” (Poe p. 1245). He also said he was hearing the old man’s heart beat. Through out his story there are many exaggerations. The defendant also speaks of being able to stay perfectly still for over an hour while holding a lantern. “For a whole hour I did not move a muscle . . .” (1246). It is humanly impossible to stand perfectly still for over an hour especially while holding a lantern. If one were to attempt this stunt they would merely last fifteen to twenty minutes before giving up from exhaustion. These over exaggera...
Rather than believing himself to be a murder the narrator sees himself as someone who is defending others against the evil eye, and not the old man. His disease has allowed the narrator to see them as two separate entities (Dern58). According to the narrator he is sane as he is able to communicate his story with the listener and that is what the narrator believes restores his humanity (Dern
How can we justify if a man is insane or sane? A man may talk like a wise man, and yet act as if he is paranoid. A man with such manner cannot imply insane to us, we can only anticipate he is sane. In this case, the insane man attempted to persuade the reader that he was normal. However, several pieces of evidence indicated his insanity. In Edgar Allen Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrator is insane because he has a serious illness, he cannot tell fantasy from reality, and he hallucinates. By examining his behaviour and mind, I will analyze his insanity comprehensively.
In "The Tell-Tale Heart," by Edgar Allen Poe, the setting, the plot, the characters and even the point of view are great contributing factors to the overall reaction of the readers of the narrative.
How can we justify a man is mad or not? A man may talk like a wise man, and yet act like a mad man. In Poe’s "The Tell-Tale Heart", the narrator depicted a story that he killed the old man because of the old man’s so-call "evil eye" which made his blood run cold. Althought the narrator tried to persuade the reader that he was normal, several pieces of evidence of confusing illusion and reality adequately indicates his madness and absurdity. By examining his behaviour and mind, I will expound his madness thoroughly.
Human nature is a conglomerate perception which is the dominant liable expressed in the short story of “A Tell-Tale Heart”. Directly related, Edgar Allan Poe displays the ramifications of guilt and how it can consume oneself, as well as disclosing the nature of human defense mechanisms, all the while continuing on with displaying the labyrinth of passion and fears of humans which make a blind appearance throughout the story. A guilty conscience of one’s self is a pertinent facet of human nature that Edgar Allan Poe continually stresses throughout the story. The emotion that causes a person to choose right from wrong, good over bad is guilt, which consequently is one of the most ethically moral and methodically powerful emotion known to human nature. Throughout the story, Edgar Allan Poe displays the narrator to be rather complacent and pompous, however, the narrator establishes what one could define as apprehension and remorse after committing murder of an innocent man. It is to believe that the narrator will never confess but as his heightened senses blur the lines between real and ...
...arly shows that the narrator is insane because he heard noises, which could not possibly have occurred. As the police officers were sitting and talking in the old man's chamber, the narrator becomes paranoid that the officers suspect him of murder. The narrator says, "I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die". The narrator is deluded in thinking the officers knew of his crime because his insanity makes him paranoid.
Is the narrator of “The Tell Tale Heart” sane or insane? “Sanity: a sound of mind; not mad or mentally ill (Webster Dictionary pg. 862).” In the short story, “The Tell Tale Heart.” the narrator tries to convince the audience that he is sane; he says “... but why will you say that I am mad (Poe pg. 202).” I believe that the narrator is sane. He tries to prove that he is sane throughout the entire short story that he is not mad. For example, he was very wary during the seven days that he stalked the old man, he felt an intense amount of guilt, and that he made this brilliant plan of murder.
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.
Let’s take a look at Exhibit A that proves that the narrator is not insane rather acting that way to get away from getting punished. “The Tell Tale Hea...
"Now this is the point. Your fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me"(42 Backpack Literature). Reading such words can create a wide imagination about what the character is truly like. The narrator in the story has an indirect personality where as you read you find out more and more about him.The narrator in Edger Allan Poe's "The Tell- Tale Heart" seems like he makes himself completely insane but as readers we are never told of any psychological problems, if any, that he may have.The characterization by Poe of the narrator crease a puzzle which makes the story interesting. I would characterize the narrator as being secretive, insane and nervous.
He seems proud of what he did and towards the end of the story he is very condescending when he brings the police men into the room that he recently murdered the man in and is talking to them like nothing has happened. Which condescension is another sign of paranoid schizophrenia. By cutting up the body and placing it under the floor boards there is no evidence of the murder that recently took place and so he thinks that there is no way that anyone could find out about
The Tell Tale Heart is a story, on the most basic level, of conflict. There is a mental conflict within the narrator himself (assuming the narrator is male). Through obvious clues and statements, Poe alerts the reader to the mental state of the narrator, which is insanity. The insanity is described as an obsession (with the old man's eye), which in turn leads to loss of control and eventually results in violence. Ultimately, the narrator tells his story of killing his housemate. Although the narrator seems to be blatantly insane, and thinks he has freedom from guilt, the feeling of guilt over the murder is too overwhelming to bear. The narrator cannot tolerate it and eventually confesses his supposed 'perfect'; crime. People tend to think that insane persons are beyond the normal realm of reason shared by those who are in their right mind. This is not so; guilt is an emotion shared by all humans. The most demented individuals are not above the feeling of guilt and the havoc it causes to the psyche. Poe's use of setting, character, and language reveal that even an insane person feels guilt. Therein lies the theme to The Tell Tale Heart: The emotion of guilt easily, if not eventually, crashes through the seemingly unbreakable walls of insanity.