The story represents the insight world of a mad man. Although he claims to be completely sound while killing a person, the reasons of him doing so, and the way he chose to do it clearly state his mental instability. Old man’s evil eye is more of a symbol of the narrator’s madness, and it is represented through his unreasonable desire to get rid of a person he says he loves. The narrator needs to destroy the eye, not the person, because otherwise this eye will destroy him. The eye is a symbolic representation of the narrator’s madness. Another great meaning is given to the fear of the old man, and it is even more disturbing, as the narrator definitely finds a sadistic pleasure in telling about the terror of his victim, in describing his state …show more content…
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. Innocence vs. Guilt. The narrator’s guilt is a center stone of the whole story. It is, indeed, a story of a crazy person who kills an old man because of his “evil eye”, then cuts the body in pieces, hides it under the floor, cleans up the mess, then behaves as normal as he is capable of with the police, but then shouts out loud about his guilt after hearing a paranormal heartbeat of the dead person’s heart. It is one of the best stories to represent what conscience could do to a criminal, especially to a mentally unstable
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
Upon reading a little bit into the story the reader finds that the narrator likes the old man or rather doesn’t having anything against him, except for his eye. The pale blue eye was the focus point for his rage he hates but not the old man. How can anyone just hate someone’s eye without being mentally unstable? “I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture – a...
Moreover, the diction of the narrator and his repeated pleas to the reader to believe this thought, while not truly convincing, serve as a means to support his case. He asks, ”How, then, am I mad?” and “but why will you say that I am mad?” Beyond what could be considered a maniacal monologue, the narrator’s creepy fascination with the old man’s eye further distinguishes mental illness. What is described as “a pale blue eye, with a film over it” is, in all probability, a cataract, which is not nearly as evil as
*the narrator is looking back on what he has once witnessed long ago, and it's haunting him, makes him feel guilty and ashamed.
The article “Ego-Evil and The Tale- Tell Heart” by Magdalen Wing-chi Ki; argues the symbolism of the eye to represent selfishness and greed in “The Tale-Tell Heart.” Wing- chi Ki discusses that Ego- Evil is different from Superego-Evil. The Ego-Evil focuses more on oneself. Therefore, the Ego-Evil is more focused on self-love; while the Super-Ego “welcomes evil due to some "fanatical devotion" or an "ideological ideal" (Wing-chi Ki, Magdalen). The “fanatical devotion” shows the way that the narrator felt when he got rid of the body. The narrator is fascinated with thinking that he will get away with hiding the body of the man with the evil eye. The “ideological ideal” emphasizes on the narrator’s obsession with the man’s evil eye. This gives the narrator the idea of murdering the old man, but only because he feels so uneasy in the presence of the evil eye. Wing-chi Ki argues that Edgar Allan Poe gives the narrator so little knowledge of the old man. Therefore, this entices the narrator into viewing the old man based on his fondness for the man, and not the truth on why the evil eye is present. The narrator; therefore, judges the old man only on how he feels towards the eye itself, and not the old man.
The narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator realizes that he absences a reason for killing the old man he lives with. He even starts to admit having to love the man. He states, “There was no reason for what I did. I did not hate the old man; I even loved him. He had never hurt me. I did not want his money. I think it was his eye” (Poe 64). Psychosis is seen in the difficult rationality the narrator uses to defend his murder. The logic the narrator provides is that he thinks the desire to murder the old man results from the man’s eye, which bothers him. He says, “When the old man looked at me with his vulture eye a cold feeling went up and down my back; even my blood became cold. And so, I finally decided I had to kill the old man and close that eye forever!” (Poe 65). The fact that by this man’s eye is what makes him very angry is such a irrelevant reason for the narrator to kill him. This proves that he is not mentally stable, anyone in their right state of mind would not want to commit such a crime due to an irritation of someone’s eye. This represents the idea that this narrator expresses his complete lack of sanity through the premeditation and planning he put into committing the murder. In the beginning of the story, he says “vulture eye” giving the impression that he is uncertain that the eye is the reason for the murder, he also says how he thinks it’s the eye, he uses past tense as opposed to declaring with certainty that this is why the killing of the man. This shows the contrast to how as a sane person would be sure that this is their reason for killing another person before committing.
...cause of the old man he is taking care of’s eye. One of the old man’s eyes was a pale blue with a film over it. Because of this, he decides to kill the old man to “be free of it”. When he brutally murders the old man, he dismembers his body and puts it under the floorboard. A neighbor heard screams and sent the police over to see what the problem was and the narrator claimed he screamed in his sleep and the old man was out of town. The police believed nothing was wrong, but the narrator’s guilt consumed him, and he told on himself, causing him to be arrested.
Julian Symons suggests that the murder of the old man is motiveless, and unconnected with passion or profit (212). But in a deeper sense, the murder does have a purpose: to ensure that the narrator does not have to endure the haunting of the Evil Eye any longer. To a madman, this is as good of a reason as any; in the mind of a madman, reason does not always win out over emotion.
The story of the “Encounter” expresses different images of light and dark. Thesituation of the image of the old man the two young boys come across on their journey. The adventure of the young boys leads to some confusion to what’s happening throughout their adventures. The boys were talking “with Leo Dillon and a boy named Mahony I planned a day’s miching”(13). The boys came up with plans to get out of school for their adventure. The boys headed out towards their destination; throughout their adventure they come across uncertainties. The boys come across the world that’s different than what they are used to, such as the old man. The old man seems very confusing for the young boys; the old man talks about young girls saying, “what nice soft hair they had and how soft their hands were and how all girls were not so good as they seemed to be if one only knew” (18). The boys were confused with the statements the old man was saying. Mahony said “he’s a queer old josser” (18). The images of the old man were very negative towards the boys adventure. ...
And when the storyteller couldn't take anymore of the Evil Eye looking at him, he said, "I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever. " This is the start of the storyteller’s madness, and as the reader listens to what he says, the madness within the storyteller becomes very apparent. For eight nights in a row, the storyteller went to the old man’s chamber and cast a shred of light upon the Evil Eye that he so hated. For seven nights, it was always shut, and the storyteller could do nothing because it was only the eye that he hated, not the old man. On the eighth, the storyteller accidentally makes some noise and wakes the old man up.
The major part of the story was mostly about the guilt of the narrator. The story is about a mad man that after killing his companion for no reason hears a never-ending heartbeat and lets out his sense of guilty by shouting out his confession.
The narrator believes he is justified in killing the old man because the man has an Evil Eye. The narrator claims the old man's eye made his blood run cold and the eye looked as if it belonged to a vulture. Poe shows the narrator is insane because the narrators' actions bring out the narrative irony used in "The Tell Tale Heart".... ... middle of paper ...
After the burying the corpse beneath the floorboards, the narrator, being proud of his work, states that “no human eye – not even his – could have detected anything wrong.” To the narrator, the old man is able to see beyond what the average person can see. One might assume that it was the fear of the eye’s judgement that caused the narrator to resort to murder. Although this is true, a stronger motivation was the fear of his own insanity. The fact that he feared the eye made him see the irrational side of himself. In refusal to acknowledge his mental disorder, the narrator gives an alternative name to his paranoia, characterized by an oversensitivity to sound: “nervousness.” The phrase “I have nothing to fear” right after the murder as well as in the presence of the police is repeated because he’s trying to convince...
The narrator wrestles with conflicting feelings of responsibility to the old man and feelings of ridding his life of the man's "Evil Eye" (34). Although afflicted with overriding fear and derangement, the narrator still acts with quasi-allegiance toward the old man; however, his kindness may stem more from protecting himself from suspicion of watching the old man every night than from genuine compassion for the old man.
...d the rational explanation is that the narrator wanted to kill the old man for his own indulgence. The liberation the narrator describes after the murder of the old man shows that violence was truly the key motive for his crime.