...Madness and of Love and Hate in Poe’s “Tell Tale Heart” and Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover” In Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “Tell Tale Heart” and in Robert Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover,” both unnamed narrators commit murder and provide the audience with a seemingly unjustifiable reason as to why they murder their loved ones. In “Tell Tale Heart” and in “Porphyria’s Lover,” both narrators attempt to pose to the audience that they are not insane and effectively accomplish this through their tone and explicit narration. Two of the recurring themes within both Poe’s short story and Browning’s poem are madness and the tension between love and hate. The themes are reinforced through calm tone and passive tone and through the characterization of the narrators. In Poe’s “Tell Tale Heart,” the narrator opens up the short story denying the fact that he is insane and defends his statement by confessing to killing an old man in a very calculated and precise manner with the simple motivation being his fear of the old man’s “eye of a vulture.” The narrator goes through with his plan of murdering the old man and hides the body only to be engulfed by a feeling of guilt which leads him to confessing his act to the police. Throughout the short story, the narrator continues to tell the audience that he is not insane due to his “sharpened … senses” and his “calm” way of telling the whole story, yet it is his tale of murder that contradicts the very claim that he attempts to defend throughout the...
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...Tell-Tale Heart “TRUE!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses—not destroyed—not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad?” Upon reading the very first paragraph of the Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, many, if not all, readers can imply that there is something peculiar about the narrator. If some readers were not convinced enough to believe that he is insane from this paragraph, the rest of the story certainly will prove his insanity. Throughout the tale, the narrator desperately tries to defend himself and prove that he is sane by telling...
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...short story, Tell-Tale Heart, effectively portrays the killer through the use of literary tools and themes such as mortality, imagery, and point of view. The main character wants to show he is not insane, and even offers a story as proof. The narrator’s decision to kill the old man so that the eye would stop looking at him marked the initial situation. The motives of the killer aren’t understood, which makes the murder mystery difficult to understand. Was the narrator insane? Did he kill the old man in self-defense? As such, the fear of death is expressed in the text. For example, “I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.” This excerpt illustrates the narrator’s thoughts of mortality. “Yes, he was stone, stone dead”, depicts how the narrator continued to express the old man’s death in a conspicuous/ distinct manner. Edgar Allen Poe can build so much fixated context over the old mans “vulture eye”, amplifying the use of imagery in the text. “You fancy me mad...You should have seen how wisely I proceeded.” This is ironic because the man tells himself he is normal that he is killing a man because of his eye. Another example is, “a pale blue eye, with a film over it.” The symbol in this quote was the film over the eye, how the man couldn't see as well what was going on right under his nose. Poe creates confusion using his pandemonium literature to render the imagery of the story. Whether or not the old man was a vulture like...
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...unwanted truth, especially the ill. In the short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, by Edgar Allan Poe, the protagonist, is faced with his biggest problem yet, himself. Within the story, he is faced with guilt, perhaps too much guilt for one to handle. The unknown narrator is seen as an insane individual through his constant paranoia, neurotic thoughts, and unstable actions. The mad man is clearly able to demonstrate his insanity with his constant paranoia towards the old man. Throughout the text, the narrator expresses his ongoing feelings of paranoia towards the evil eye. He believes the eye haunts his every waking hour, till he finally decides to rid himself from the eye once and for all, “I was never...
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...“The Tell-Tale Heart” are suspense filled stories, where the characters involved make choices and must live with the consequences. “The Monkeys Paw” is the story of a man being granted three wishes that bring him something he desires, but each comes with a horrible consequence. “The Tell-Tale Heart” is about a man who takes care of an elderly man as he, the caretaker, slowly goes insane. The authors carefully crafted cause-and-effect relationships in "The Tell-Tale Heart" and “The Monkeys Paw” to increase suspense and help the readers connect to the story. The suspenseful nature of the “The Monkeys Paw” is created by the cause-and-effect relationship developed in the story. The story is about a man and his family being granted three wishes, but each had a terrible consequence. After using the first wish, he realizes the consequences are worse than he had originally thought. The author...
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...The story of tell-tale-heart is written by Edgar Allen Poe it tells the story of a man who kills an old man. This story is a great story it creates tension and suspense. In the story I believe the man didn’t have a mental state of mind. This narrator grabs your attention wanting you to read more about the story. You should read the book it is a great book. The man committed murder, he killed the man because of the old man’s evil eye and the way his heart thumped, louder and louder he was afraid the neighbors could hear the old man’s heart. He was sane, but he wanted revenge because of the way the evil man’s eye mocked and looked at him. The man was sane throughout the story, but when he heard the old man’s heart thumping louder, and louder,...
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...When we read the stories, ‘The Tell -Tale Heart” and “The Masque of Red Death” we see many examples of symbolism. In “The Tell - Tale Heart”, the biggest symbol is the old man’s eye. The old man’s eye didn’t just symbolize an ordinary eye, it has a deeper meaning. The old man’s eye symbolizes fear. The narrator says that the old man’s eye horrifies him. The narrator describes the old man’s eye, and says, “One of his eyes resembles that of a vulture - a pale blue eye, with film over it”(pg.523) . He compares the old man’s eye to the eye of a vulture to show the reader that the old man didn’t have an ordinary eye, he had a sinister eye. The eye also symbolizes fear, the narrator was fearful of the old man’s eye until the eye became an obsession to him. The obsession the narrator had led him to murder the old man. After he murdered the old man, he wasn’t okay, he had such a strong sense of guilt that he turned himself to the police, and he eventually ended up dying. In the story “The Masque of Red Death”, the biggest symbol is death. The prince takes one thousand...
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...Imagine you were an old and you had this stranger watching you would you run or let him keep watching you? The narrator of “The Tale Tell Heart” watched the old man sleep for 7 nights on a row. In the beginning of the the book he talked about an illness. and he killed the old man over his eye. also after he killed him he smiled at the corpse then he chopped him into pieces. The reason that i think that the narrator is insane is because. in the beginning of the story he talked about an illness and back in the 1800’s there was not a lot of advanced medicine. and he could of had any disease. And he is arguing with himself that he is not insane. and that is normally a sign that you are insane. I think he is insane because. near the end he...
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...pathological killers. In “The Cast of Amontillado” and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Poe portrayed exceptional acts of madness, murders, and decay. In the case of “The Cast of Amontillado,” Poe’s character Montresor seemed mentally disturbed over a thousand injuries and an insult, obsessed with revenge. (1238). This demonstrated the instability or madness of Montresor mental well being. The individual here shows he was committing insanity by letting his emotions rule and not thinking logically. “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the person starts the story stating he is not mad which makes the reader sure of his mental illness. Eight nights he visits the bedroom of the old man, on the eighth night the eye opens; he grows furious as he looks at it and kills the old man. At the end of the story, his madness manifests into the form of the old man’s heart sounds. Illustrating he was insane before and after his killing of the old man. Montresor’s murder is careful calculated, and was illustrated with the trowel. Poe wrote he pulled a trowel from under the folds of his cloak, and he had stone and mortar ready beside Amstutz 2 the crypt before he lured Fortunato, his victim, to the catacombs (“The Cast” 1242-1243). The audience can obviously see that this homicide was premeditated. Fortunato had a long, slow death behind the bricked up wall. He did not suspect his plight, even at the very end he laughed and thought it was a joke. While, the old man...
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...In 1843, a short story by Edgar Allan Poe was published, telling a tale of the madness within one’s mind, written for entertainment. Fifty-six years later, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, discussing mental deterioration, was published. Both stories use different symbolism and themes to create a climatic tale. “The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman compare in a way that both characters suffer from a mental illness and the authors show this using repetition and suspense to make the reader curious throughout the story. However, they differentiate because in “The Tell Tale Heart”, the narrator from the beginning is clearly insane whereas in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator makes it less obvious and takes longer to reveal her true mental illness,. Both stories discuss madness but both narrators use different language and metaphors to show that. Although there are many similarities between the stories, one that really stand out it the fact that the main characters in both stories are mentally ill. In the “Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator is isolated from the outside world because of her husband. We see her madness through her eyes. This is an example of a story told by showing, rather than telling. One has to assume that there really isn’t a woman trapped in the wall, it’s all in narrator’s mind because she’s not living in reality. In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the situation is very similar. The narrator is a madman...
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...The Guilt In the tale, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Poe tells the story of how the narrator who was assumed to be mad for killing an old man. The old man has an eye like a vulture and the narrator said this old man’s eye is an evil eye; according to the story he said “one of his eyes resembled that of a vulture-a pale blue eye, with a film over it” (39). The story shows guilt and emotional breakdown, but sometimes feel emotional disturbance. The tone at the beginning of the story is eerie because the narrator is talking about an evil eye and then he goes on to say how he watches the old man late at night for hours, just looking at his eye, studying him, and not saying a word. At the beginning of the story, the narrator questions his sanity, saying "...why will you say I am man? (39)" For him to come out and say this statement, I feel everyone has seen him as an insane person, because people believe that it is impossible to kill your rich and wealthy master just because of his eyes; someone would have done that because of his wealth and riches, but his case was different, that is why they see him to be insane. This was what made him tell his story in a gentle approach. He was making his point to the person, telling him or her that he is not insane, and he knows what he is doing and would not have killed the old man the way he did if he was insane. In "The Tell-Tale Heart," the narrator tells of his torture. He was disturbed by the old man's Evil Eye. The narrator had no ill will...
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...September 27, 2014 “A Question of Motive in The Tell Tale Heart” Why did the man in The Tell Tale Heart kill the old man? That is the question that Poe asks you to ponder in his story yet he gives us scant clues as to the answer. The motive eludes us even as the murderer is guilted into confessing by his own mind and then goes on to thoroughly detail his gruesome deed. The murderer will be referred to as “he” although his sex is never revealed, he refers to himself as a “madman” within this first person narrative (Shen, 287). This piece is tightly written, short to read and it builds at a frantic and hurried pace and then climaxes abruptly. This leaves the reader craving more details and to wishing confirm the man’s motives. Poe’s story consists of the author’s unique ability to create grotesque inventiveness and superb plot construction (Shen, 275). Some interpret the old man as the father of the murderer and his act a release of built up tension and resentment toward him (DeBord, 1). There appears to be no familial bond in the heart of the man when describing the old man, he also lacks the rage that one would expect if the act were resentment fueled murder. Instead the old man seems to be a fond acquaintance of our murderer, because they reside within the same home it can be hypothesized that one or the other is simply a boarder in the other’s home. There is no malice, no greed and no disdain to motivate him, he even claims to love the old man. When one compares...
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...idiotic, but still, somehow, you just can’t stop it” Elizabeth Wurtzel. The three short stories; “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “Strawberry Spring” by Stephen King all have unreliable narrators. Although all of these narrators suffer from mental illnesses, the narrator from, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is the most insane because she contributes to the most heinous acts. The narrator from “The Yellow Wallpaper” cannot witness reality because of hallucination. Others believe that the narrator from “The Tell-Tale Heart” is more unreliable because he suffers from delusions and paranoia of an evil eye. While this statement is...
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...“Nobody owns life, but anyone who can pick up a frying pan owns death.” The Tell-Tale Heart is about a man who lives on his own with a narrator who takes care of him, but he thinks his glass eye is evil, like the eye of a vulture, he decides to take the life of the old man to rid himself of the eye forever, when the cops come he feels overconfident of covering up the murder, but in the end he ends up admitting the crime. In The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator is guilty of murder because he admits to the crime, he was very cautious, and he planned ahead. In conclusion, the narrator is sane and guilty of murder. The narrator is sane enough to admit the crime. “Villains”! I shrieked “dissemble no more”! “I admit the deed”! “Tear...
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...heard of the story The Tell Tale Heart? It is a dark story of a man descended into madness murdering an old man. But not everyone thinks he was a mad man, some think he was just acting or that murdering the man brought him into madness. Everyone has their opinion on this matter and we will be exploring just one of them. Well truly it’s more like I am defending my opinion on this story and how I believe the man truly was with evidence from the story itself. I would have to say that the man was truly insane and completely capable of planning ahead despite of his mental state. I say he was a mad man because of his reasons for his actions, the narrator explains in the story page 1 says: “I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this!” (Tell-Tale-Heart) and this was enough to drive him to murder. His drive for the murder was such a simple and pathetic reason that anyone sane would have to disagree that it would be an acceptable reason....
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