Insanity in The Tell Tale Heart Literature Essay Example

📌Category: Edgar Allan Poe, Literature, Writers
📌Words: 385
📌Pages: 2
📌Published: 16 April 2022

Insanity is a disease that cripples a person’s ability to tell right from wrong. In the Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe, the narrator is plagued by insanity so severe that he kills an old man he loves. Even though the narrator admits to the murder, the narrator is not guilty because of insanity. 

To begin, the narrator claims he is hearing voices inside his head. In the opening paragraph, the narrator said, “I heard all things in heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell.” The narrator states the disease helped his senses. However, this is untrue. Insane people claim they hear things that normal people do not. Since the narrator is hearing voices in his head, he is insane. This clearly proves the narrator is not thinking logically and is in a troubled mental state, making him not guilty because of insanity.

Also, the narrator killed someone he loved just because of his “Evil Eye.” In Paragraph two, the narrator said, “I loved the old man. He had never wronged me.” The narrator’s point in saying this was he killed someone he loved. Usually, when someone kills someone else, they despise or hate them, However, the narrator killed someone he loved, making him insane. This quote proves the narrator is insane. He killed someone he was caring for, someone who was defenseless, and someone he loved.

When the narrator saw the old man’s disability, he was so spooked, he thought the only way to solve this problem was to kill the old, defenseless man. In paragraph two, the narrator says, “Whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold and so by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man and thus rid myself of the eye forever.” The narrator was so spooked by the old man’s blind eye, he thought the only way to not be scared of a blind eye is to kill him. Usually, when a sane person sees a person with a deformity, they do not jump to kill them. However, since the narrator is insane, he killed the old man over the old man’s “Evil Eye.”

Given these points, the narrator is not guilty because of insanity. Since he was hearing voices inside his head, killed an old man he loved, and killed an old man, just because of his blind eye, he is insane. Ultimately, the narrator is insane, making him not guilty because of insanity.

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