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The Tell Tale Heart Insanity Analysis

Decent Essays

In the short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator denies the accusations that he is mentally unstable and begins to tell a tale to prove his sanity. The unnamed narrator recalls his experience by being inspired to kill the old man who was living with him. One night, the narrator slips into the old man’s bedroom, removes him from his bed, and drags the bed over his body to kill him. He cuts him into pieces and buries the body under the floorboards. When the police come to question him, he is disturbed by the sound of the old man’s heart, which he perceives to be still beating beneath the floorboards. He is so disturbed that he confesses to some officers of the murder because of the loud heartbeats of the man’s heart, which symbolizes the narrator’s consciousness. The main character is unreliable due to his insanity For instance, the term insanity is often defined as the state of being seriously mentally ill; madness. …show more content…

The narrator denies the accusations that he is mentally unstable, and begins to tell a tale to prove his sanity. The narrator remember his experience by being inspired to kill the old man who was living with him. One night, the narrator slips into the old man’s bedroom, removes him from his bed, and drags the bed over his body to kill him. He cuts him into pieces and buries the body under the floorboards. Later, the police come to question him, he is disturbed by the sound of the old man’s heart, which he perceives to be still beating beneath the floorboards. He is so disturbed that he confesses to some officers of the murder because of the loud heartbeats of the man’s heart, which symbolizes the narrator’s consciousness. The way the narrator told his story is unreliable because he is not sane, he is uneasy and paranoid, and he is confused about what he really feels and

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