ipl-logo

Legally Insane In The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

492 Words2 Pages

My opinion? My client, Edgar Allan Poe, is Legally Insane. Mr. Poe should be found not be guilty for the murder of the old man by reason of insanity. In my client’s confession, The Tell Tale Heart, he admits to committing the murder. But admitting to a murder does not make him sane. During this trial I will convince you, the jury, that my client is innocent by reason of insanity. The legal definition of insanity is that a person cannot tell reality from fantasy, they cannot control their their behavior or they could not tell right from wrong because of a mental illness or mental defect.Page one of my clients’ confession states he hears voices. “ I hear all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell.” Sane people clearly do not hear voices within the earth …show more content…

A reasonable person does not, cannot, hear voices.Another reason why my client Edgar is insane is that in his confession he claims to have a disease. “The disease had sharpened my senses-not destroyed-not dulled them.” (Page 1) Edgar’s disease is clearly in Edgar’s head. He thinks his “disease” heightens his senses, he saw no physical change but he has mentally changed. His senses seemed more acute to him. This is not is a reasonable change due to disease. It is a result of his mental illness, his inability to tell right from wrong. Lastly, on page 5 Edgar admits to hearing the beating of the old mans heart while chatting with the officers. “I fancied a ringing in my ear.” “It grew louder-louder-louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled.Was it possible they heard it not? Almighty God!-no no! They heard!-they suspected!-they knew!-they were making a mockery of my horror!” “It is the beating of his hideous heart!” The officers did not hear the beating of his heart, it was all in Edgars head. Also when the ringing got louder and louder Edgar couldn't control how he felt. He just got angrier and angrier until he popped and told the truth in hope that the beating

Show More
Related

  • The Tell Tale Heart Case Analysis

    518 Words  | 3 Pages

    Embracing the idea that he is insane the defendant is hearing things that normal people do not hear. This is evidence when he says,”I heard things in the heaven and in the earth”(89). This proves he is insane because he is hearing stuff that other normal people don’t. The prosecution will try to say that he is not hearing anything. That is wrong because he hears things in heaven and hell.

    Read More

  • The Argumentative Paragraph In The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

    558 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Tell-Tale Heart Argumentative Paragraph In the story, “ The Tell-Tale Heart ,” Poe gives ideas which could prove that the narrator is criminally insane. The narrator could be named mad for some of his many actions and thoughts. The facts supporting this include: the defendant killed the old man over his “evil eye”, he brutally murdered the man and dismembered his body, he has to remind himself that he isn’t mad even though he committed murder, and states that he hears the dead man's heartbeat get louder and louder until he confesses murder. To begin with, the defendant kills the old man he lived with over his “evil” eye. He states that it gets to him, and drives him to eventually, after the 8th night, kill him.

    Read More

  • A Literary Analysis Of The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

    560 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Style of Poe Analysis In “The Tell-tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe, the demented, arrogant and dark tones reflect the man’s guilt and insanity that eventually leds him to admit to the crime he committed. Poe’s diction heightens the arrogant tones which is seen as the man plans the murder and carries it out in a careful, organized way. He goes “boldly” into the chamber, “cunningly” sticks his head in the doorway and feels “the extent of his own power”. Poe’s use of diction shows how cocky the man actually is.

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of Insanity In The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

    557 Words  | 3 Pages

    Insanity is a disease capable of making a person lose control of themselves. On the other hand, sanity is when a person is what others call “normal”. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe the narrator kills a man and he is confessing to the cops about it. He confesses how long the murder took and what he did each night and how he executed the murder. However, the narrator is not guilty because of the reason of insanity.

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of Insanity Defense In Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart

    275 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrator should not be guilty by reason of insanity. “Insanity Defense” states that a man is innocent by means of insanity if he has committed the crime because he is “unable to control his impulses” as a result of mental disease (“Insanity Defense” 1). Similarly, the narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” viewed the old man’s “pale blue eye, with a film over it” with hatred (Poe 1). When the old man’s eye looked upon the narrator, he would uncontrollably increase in fury and anger. This led the narrator to “[make] up [his] mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid [him]self of the eye forever” (Poe 1).

    Read More

  • The Tell Tale Heart The Narrator's Insanity Analysis

    945 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Insanity: n. mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior” (Hill). This definition describes the narrator, a sweet yet deadly man, of “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe seamlessly. (Appositive) A few prominent characteristics demonstrate the narrator’s insanity, and those include his motives, his actions, and his thoughts.

    Read More

  • Insanity In Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart

    780 Words  | 4 Pages

    They heard!--they suspected!--they knew!--they were making a mockery of my horror! (page 181) Although some people say that the heart was still beating, that’s not possible because he chopped off all the body parts and took the heart out which makes it no longer connected and beating. Seeing that the old man's dead, and the heart is no longer pounding, how can he hear it? Therefore, this proves the narrator's

    Read More

  • Comparison Of Insanity In Tell-Tale Heart And The Yellow Wallpaper

    1100 Words  | 5 Pages

    Merriam-Webster describes insanity as “a severely disordered state of the mind usually occurring as a specific disorder”. “Poe's short story features a narrator who deals with the symptoms of a serious mental disorder called schizophrenia. He hears things (in the end, the beating of a dead man's heart) that others do not hear, and he believes that people are out to get him. His thinking is distorted, and he has lost touch with reality. ”(humanillnesses.com)

    Read More

  • Schizophrenia In Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart

    497 Words  | 2 Pages

    The quote in “The Tell-Tale Heart manifest that the narrator was hearing the beating of the old man’s heart which isn’t doable because he killed the old man and he is no longer breathing (Poe 4). Due to being schizophrenic the narrator has hallucinations which makes him hear and see the

    Read More

  • The Unreliable Narrator In The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

    882 Words  | 4 Pages

    Readers may question Poe’s choice of a mentally unstable narrator. Though the narrator is clearly proven mad, his descriptions intensify the story greatly. It gives the tale purpose and proposes a captivating plot. A narrator: it is now made debatable if readers will ever have entire trust in another after Edgar Allan Poe’s remarkable

    Read More

  • To What Extent Is The Narrator Insane In The Tell Tale Heart

    496 Words  | 2 Pages

    Insane or Sane? The terrifying story, “The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe is down right bizarre. I believe the narrator is definitely a little strange whether you may disagree or not. Edgar Allen Poe had a very interesting way of applying the narrator to act like he is not crazy, but at the same time basically baby feeding the readers that he really is crazy. There are several ways the narrator himself is actually proving he is insane.

    Read More

  • Getting Away With Murder In Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

    601 Words  | 3 Pages

    Whose parents want their child reading about how to possibly get away with murder in an 8th grade ELA class? If you were a parent would you want your child to read a book that could probably build horrible thoughts in their mind? Would you worry that the book sends the wrong message? In the book, “Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator is planning on killing an old man who never harmed him , but had a pale blue eye that drove him insane. He watched the man sleep for seven nights waiting on the eye to be open, and on the the eighth night he killed the man.

    Read More

  • Tell Tale Heart Thesis

    760 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the story, the narrator says “It was the beat of the old man's heart”(Poe). While hearing a heartbeat right before killing the old man. This proves that the old man is insane, because he believes that his own nervous heartbeat was that of the old man’s. A sane person would know that the heartbeat was that of their own and would know that you can't hear a dead man's heartbeat. The narrator also said that “The sound would be heard by a neighbor”.

    Read More

  • Insanity Defense In Psychology

    680 Words  | 3 Pages

    The book’s definition of insanity refers to “the legal concept referring to the criminal’s state of mind at the time of the crime was committed. It requires that, due to a mental illness, a defendant lacks moral responsibility and culpability for the crime, and therefore should not be punished” (Costanzo, M., & Krauss, D. Forensic and legal psychology: Psychological science applied to law) There where overwhelming cases about defendant that tried to use the insanity defense. The role that the insanity defense played in conjunction with psychology was that the psychologist would have to choose diverse ways of stating that a defendant was insane. A long with providing expert testimony at trail or competence hearings the psychologists would inform

    Read More

  • Edgar Allan Poe's Tales Of The Criminal Insanity Analysis

    1395 Words  | 6 Pages

    In Edgar Allan Poe’s tales of criminal insanity, the first-person narrators confess unsound confessions. They control the narrative, which only allows us to see through their eyes. However, they do describe their own pathological or psychological actions so conscientiously that they exhibit their own insanity. They are usually incapable of stepping back from their narratives to detect their own madness. The narrator 's’ fluency is meticulous and often opulent.

    Read More

More about Legally Insane In The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

Open Document