Examples Of Insanity In The Tell Tale Heart

Sane or Insane
There are many reasons that would drive an individual to murder another. It could be for their money or in self defence. Usually it is not because their eye looks strange. In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator defends his sanity after murdering the old man under his care. Although he repeatedly claims that he is mentally stable, the narrator’s thought process and behaviors suggest that he is indeed insane. The narrator’s lack of reason and auditory hallucinations provide proof of his insanity. Throughout the story the man shows a large lack of reason. For example the man states “I loved the old man. He had never wronged me… I made up my my mind to take the life of the old man”(p 1). The man shows absolutely no reason by killing the old man though he says that he loves him; the old man has never even wronged him. It does not make sense to kill someone you say that you love. Later he goes on to say that “it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man that vexed me me, but his Evil Eye”(p 1). What the man is saying is that he is going to take the life of

When he is sneaking into the old man’s room on the eighth night he thinks to himself “the sound would be heard by a neighbor”(p 2). He is talking about the man’s heart beating. There is no possible way that he you can hear someone else's heartbeat from that distance or at that volume. It is not actually there he just thinks he hears it. While the man is talking to the police “the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder --louder --louder!”(p 3). The man begins to feel guilty as he is talking to the police. He thinks that he can hear the old man’s heart even though he is dead under the floorboards. This eventually drives him to start shouting and admit what he has done. This goes to prove that this man is hearing things and is completely