How Does Poe Show Insanity

In Edgar Allan Poe’s “A Tell-Tale Heart”, his character has many logos. The paradox of the story is while he argues his sanity, multiple times, the character is quite mad. In the short story he kills a man that he has no ill feelings toward because he doesn’t like the man’s eye. Poe’s character claims “Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad?” A sane person would not claim to hear heaven or hell. Poe goes on to tell why he wanted to murder this old man. His character had no logical reason to want this man dead. He loved the old man. The man had never bothered Poe. Poe’s characters only argument was that he didn’t like the old man’s eye. Poe explains, “He had the eye of a vulture – pale blue eye with film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degress –very gradually – I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.” While the character shows his brilliance with his thought and planning, he also shows his insanity. A person who would let an eye drive them to murder is unarguably insane.

Every night he would go into the mans room to check on him to see if he would wake when he entered the room and to try to get the man use to him coming in, so he wouldn’t be startled and scream if he awoke while Poe was in there. He done this for eighth nights. By the eighth night Poe was braver. Poe describes the mans terror as he entered the room on the eighth night, he even relates to the mans terror, but still this does not stop him. He has no sympathy for the man. Upon lighting the room Poe sees the eye which immensely angers him. Poe again shows his madness while trying to argue his sanity. He claims what we mistake for madness is him having “over-acuteness of the sense”. His character is angered by the beat of the mans