This madness is not, however, sustained when guard is unnecessary. Maybe Hamlet thought too much, but he thought as a sane man would. He commits no actions without reason, and he is far too astute and organized to be proclaimed mentally unstable. Hamlet?s portrayal of a madman is also very complex because it allows not only his points to be made, but in a believably insane way, which contrasts greatly with the expected ramblings of a truly insane person. Bibliography: Shakespeare, William.
He asks, “Why will you say that I am mad?”… “Observe how healthily-how calmly I can tell you the whole story” (Poe par.1). Fundamentally, the confused state of the narrators mind could be Poe’s strategy to keep the reader induced by the narrator’s confession. The twisted plot brings complexity to such a short story making The Tell-Tale Heart to be both mysterious and psychologically intriguing. The fact that he had not motive to kill the old man furthers confirms of his insanity. In the process of defending his sanity plea, the narrator has to confess about committing the crime.
Insanity. The story begins with the narrator’s wish to prove that he is sane, but from the very first words of his it is clear that he is not, and that, probably, he and his words should be taken with a great caution. A very good proof on his insanity is a desire to prove the reverse, as the more people repeat something, the less it could be trusted. The narrator’s description of the “evil eye” is very visual, it is almost possible to feel the terror he feels before it, but it is still not enough to kill a person he says he loves. The main argument of the narrator’s sanity is his description of how he killed the old man, and how he has thought of his behavior and cleaned up the murder scene: this even more proves his instability, as no person in their sound mind would find such argument to be a solid proof of sanity.
The narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart” who claims to be sane is in fact trying to get away with the punishment for the crime that he readily admits by faking insanity through ironic means. Edgar Allan Poe, the writer himself is the one who establishes the irony in this story, not the narrator because the latter seems to be completely insensible about the ironic component of his monologue. The convention critical analysis of "The Tell-Tale Heart" might engage the story from the point of view that the narrator's attempt to prove his sanity might be an exercise in irony. Irony, in today’s world, can be easily misinterpreted by most of us because we tend to get confused with it taking it like not... ... middle of paper ... ... means. Works Cited Baraban, Elena V. “The Motive for Murder in "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe” Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature 58.2 (2004): 47-62 Gargano, James W. ‘‘The Theme of Time in ‘The Tell-Tale Heart.’’’ Studies in Short Fiction 5.4 (1967): 378-382.
Perhaps these are the acts of a mad man. The narrator is not a crazy killer, but simply a premeditated murderer. When all the known facts are assembled, along with theoretical assumptions based on those facts, readers are left with a monologue that appears to be delivered by an unreliable and an intangible narrator, who seems like being engaged in dramatic irony by making them look guilty by paradoxically insisting on proving innocence. The real irony, in the contemporary sense, is that what has been taken as obvious evidence of the narrator's insanity is actually, when closely examined, evidence of a man attempting to escape judgment for the guilt he readily he admits by faking insanity through ironic means.
Through the use of irony, symbolism, and imagery in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Poe illustrates a theme of destruction that guilt and madness can do to the human mind. In the beginning of the story, the irony present can be obviously seen. The young man is constantly reminding the reader that he is sane, saying, “You fancy me mad… You should have seen how wisely I was proceeding” (Poe p. 619). This is ironic, because his insanity is clearly present due to the fact that his only reason for wanting to kill the old man is the way the man’s eye stares at the narrator in the dark. His paranoia from the way the old man’s eye looks at him has started to drive him insane, causing him to have dark thoughts of murdering him.
Edgar Allan Poe is known for his short stories and are told by narrators who are reliable but, “The Tell-Tale Heart” the unnamed narrator is insane and has a mental disease and there are many reasons why he is insane with evidence to prove it. He claims that he is not mad but he is very nervous. Even though he tries to convince that he is very careful on murdering the old man. A reliable narrator would not be pressed to justify his act, but only to tell it simply and without embellishment. We can clearly see that the narrator is an obsessed man of active senses, the narrator is not mad, we say he’s extremely a clever man is suffers from a mental disease.
Tell Tale Heart is a short horror story by E.A. Poe that is told from the first person perspective and describes the murder of an old man. The main character plots the crime because he (supposing the narrator is male) is irritated by the old man’s “evil eye”. The narrator kills the old man in his sleep, dismembers the body and hides the corpse parts under the floorboards. The main character is not suspected until he confesses the murder to the police believing everyone can hear the beating of the dead man’s heart from under the floor.
In Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator explains how he is not mad, how cautious he is in planning a murder. A person can argue however with the narrator of ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’, which he is indeed mad. The anxiety the narrator experiences through out the story makes him mad, it is also the guilt that brought on more anxiety to the narrator at the end of the story. The narrator constantly speaks of how he is not mad; he constantly as the reader why would they think he is mad. “True!
The killer wants to be perceived as wise and intelligent when in all actuality he is insane. Due to his mental instability and his contradicting actions he proves himself to be an unreliable narrator. The narrator’s reasons for killing the old man do not make sense at all thrust forth solidifying the idea of mad man. The narrator says “It is impossible to say how the idea entered my brain” (Poe 1127) even he doesn’t know where the idea to murder the man came from in the first place. He also states “I loved the old man.