Edgar Allan Poe and Insanity Essay - 3421 Words

Edgar Allan Poe and Insanity Edgar Allan Poe shows how subconscious fears and guilt can lead to insanity through the irrational behaviors shown by the narrators in â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart† and â€Å"The Black Cat†. Both narrators have committed a crime due to their insanity in an attempt to relieve themselves from their fear and guilt, but instead ultimately cause their further decline of mental stability. Edgar Allan Poe was orphaned at an early age, later being adopted by John Allan. In his early adulthood, he developed malignant habits of alcoholism and debt. During his time, activists in the temperance movement blamed alcohol for corruptions such as violence and the destruction of family life. People during this time also had a†¦show more content†¦The narrator has a fear of the old man in â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart†, which also causes his murder. Poe shows a sense of panic in the narrator’s voice by switching between calm, logical statements and quick irrational outbursts. By using first person narrative, not only does it heighten the tension and fear running through the mind of the narrator, but it also allows us to experience and feel his fear (â€Å"Tell Tale†). The narrator makes clear that he is â€Å"very, very dreadfully nervous† (Poe, â€Å"Tell-Tale† 445) when he says, â€Å"I have told you that I am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror† (Poe, â€Å"Tell-Tale† 447). According to James Gargano, he makes us understand that the voluble murderer has been tortured by the nightmarish terrors he attributes to his victim: he was sitting up in bed listening; just as I have done night after night, harkening to the death watches in the wall’; further, the narrator interprets the old man’s groan in terms of his own persistent anguish: many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. (Gargano) The narrator seems to live in â€Å"a haunted and eerie world of his own demented making† (â€Å"Tell Tale†). He fears the old man’sShow MoreRelatedEssay on Insanity: The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe1165 Words   |  5 Pages â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart† by Edgar Allan Poe is a first-person narrative short story that showcases an enigmatic and veiled narrator. The storyteller makes us believe that he is in full control of his mind yet he is experiencing a disease that causes him over sensitivity of the senses. As we go through the story, we can find his fascination in proving his sanity. The narrator lives with an old man, who has a clouded, pale blue, vulture-like eye that makes him so helpless that he kills the old man. HeRead MoreEdgar Allan Poe Influences709 Words   |  3 Pagesof the most influential American writers ever. He is Edgar Allen Poe. Poe was an expert writer in the dark Gothic style. He once said, â€Å"Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality. Edgar Allan Poe’s Life influenced his life because of people claiming he was insane, due to many of his dark and scary stories, loss of his wife, foster mother, and mother, and also his st rong addiction to alcohol. 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Imagination is a main factor that drives the narrators to become worried. The obsessing narrators in Edgar Allan Poe’s â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart†, â€Å"The Black Cat†, and â€Å"The Imp of the Perverse† demonstrate the idea that guiltRead MoreEdgar Allan Poe s Life1092 Words   |  5 Pages Edgar Allan Poe lived in a constant state of struggle and misfortune. Poe was raised with no father, while his mother suffered from tuberculosis for the first three years of his life. Following the death of his mother, a young Poe moved into the house of J ohn and Frances Allan. In his lifetime, Poe attended the University of Virginia for one semester, The United States Military Academy at West Point and enlisted in the military under an alias of â€Å"Edgar A. Perry.† (Ober, 1960) After constantly beingRead MoreEdgar Allan Poe : The Father Of Gothic Literature1393 Words   |  6 PagesNovember 3, 2017 Edgar Allan Poe Studies say that Edgar Allan Poe was the father of gothic literature. As an American writer and critic, he went through the struggles of living in poverty, having a drinking and gambling problem, and being judge based on his decisions. He was best known as an author of gothic fiction. He had a life of misfortune and indigence. Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19,1809 in Boston, Massachusetts to two striving actors, David Poe Jr. and Elizabeth Arnold Poe. Some studiesRead MoreCritical Theory : The Raven1394 Words   |  6 PagesCritical Theory: Post-Structuralism (Deconstructionism) Author: Edgar Allan Poe Work: The Raven Literature has been one of the main sources of inspiration and possibly the most influential of modern media. There have been many authors that have had their works studied and transferred to to the big screen, including Charles Dickens, Herman Mellville, Jane Eyre, Nathanial Hawthorne, and many many more. Amoungst those authors is Edgar Allan Poe, one of America s most well-known 19th century writters. There