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"Tell-Tale Heart" and Mental Disorders

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Tell-Tale Heart is a short story by Edgar Allen Poe. The entire story is a confession of a brutal murder with no rational motive. The narrator repeatedly tries to convince the audience he hasn’t gone mad though his actions prove otherwise. To him his nervousness sharpens his senses and allows him to hear things from heaven Earth and hell. The narrator planned to kill his roommate whom had never wronged him and had loved dearly because he felt his pale blue eye was tormenting him. The narrator claims “his eye resembles that of a vulture.” The madman then goes on to explain how when the eye is on him his blood turns cold, and he has to get rid of the eye forever. He sneaks into his roommate’s room for seven nights at midnights and shines a …show more content…

He can’t take anymore so he jumps up and screams his confession. It is believed that the narrator has a mental disorder. It is not normal for his roommate’s eye to have so much control over him. “It becomes clear to the reader that this madman cannot judge reality from fantasy” (associated content). The definition of mental illness according to Houghton Mifflin is: any of various psychiatric conditions, usually characterized by impairment of an individual’s normal cognitive, emotional, or behavioral functioning, and caused by psychological or psychosocial factors. Also called mental disease, mental disorder. Basically it’s a disability in a person that causes then to behave in a not so normal way. I believe that the narrator in the story suffers from schizophrenia. Symptoms of schizophrenia are hallucinations, delusions, talking nonsense and aggressive behavior. The madman shows all these symptoms with his false perception, false beliefs, talk of the eye and violence against the old man. Yes everyone has evil thoughts sometimes but if your mental state is intact, you should be able to control those urges. “Human nature is a balance of light and dark good and evil, most of the time this balance is maintained. In those of us not mentally stable the dark side will always emerge”. Some critics argue that Tell-Tale Heart is merely a “tale of conscience“(enotes). The narrator heard the heart beat so loud because he was aware of what he had done. After he

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