Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe - Relationship Between Hypersensitivity and Downfall - Book Report/Review Example

 The Tell-Tale Heart is a sensational thriller and horror story written by Edgar Ellen Poe. Published in 1843, it was after the death of the author that the story started to get recognized as an extraordinary piece of horror literature. The story has been told in the first-person and commends the skill and talent of Edgar Ellen Poe in penning a short story that engages the readers and elicits emotional responses from them in reaction to the actions of the narrator. The story brings the dark aspect of humankind to the forefront and is a pioneer of books and movies that deal with such criminal psychology. It is a graphic novel that relates how a man kills another man, and yet is convinced that he is not mad. The story opens when an unnamed narrator says that he is not insane, but nervous. He is of the view that the disease afflicting him has made his senses sharper. He talks about an old man who has never harmed him; yet the old man’s blue eye frightens him. The narrator observes the old man closely and one day, he murders him. He cuts the body into pieces and hides them under the floorboards. Soon, he starts hearing sounds coming from the floorboards. The sounds are that of a heart beating and the narrator thinks that it is the old man’s heart. When the police come, the narrator gets scared that they will hear the thumping of the heart. Caught in his vacillating emotions, the narrator panics and admits the crime (Jackson 176). After reading the story, it can be suggested that the hypersensitivity of the narrator was the reason for his downfall. This essay aims to reflect upon this hypothesis and establishes the extent to which the dramatized and exaggerated emotions of the narrator culminate in him owning up to his crime. The essay provides three lines of argument and follows them up with a conclusion. The dramatized emotions of the narrator are an important indicator of his hypersensitivity. In the opening sentences of the story, the narrator claims to be nervous, not insane. Throughout the story, the narrator tries to justify the rationality of his actions by refuting that he is mad. He considers himself innocent even though he murdered a man, who has never harmed him. The narrator does not kill the man to gain any benefits. He is spurred into action by the blue eye old man. The narrator is indeed mad and the accrual and buildup of emotions of the period of time exceeds the tolerance threshold of the narrator, such that he is unable to hide his secret any longer. Bloomfield and Costa assert that the story is as close to a demented soliloquy as one can get and the entrancing, highly theatrical monologue of the narrator presents an accurate picture of the “stark egotism of the criminally insane” (207). The complicated emotions and the twisted views of the narrator on the perfect nature of how he conducted the murder and his reaffirmations for justifying his intent are representative of the hypersensitivity that is coming into play as the story progresses. The blue eye of the old man, the heartbeat and the narrator’s assertion of his sanity accrue to a heightened sensory condition. This condition causes the breakdown of the narrator. The narrator’s paranoia over the thumping heart beats causes him to not only kill the old man but also to confess to his crime at the end of the story. The narrator is instigated into action due to the old man’s eye. The blue eye, as perceived by the narrator, is actually transmitting a curse to the old man. The narrator is caught in an obsessive cycle to remove the blue eye of the old man. The mix of the feelings of the narrator contributes to the hypersensitivity of the narrator. The narrator is not only wrongly justified about his sanity, but the heightened guilt that he feels on the murder id the reason for his downfall. Many critics adhere to the notion that the narrator may have been talking to a psychiatrist, warden etc. and so has explained the event in great detail. The usage of the word “true” as the first word of the story is a confession of the guilt of the narrator. In trying to justify his sanity, the narrator gets stuck in a self-destructive process. This causes him to admit that he committed the murder of the old man. The emotions of the narrator dictated his real character. The narrator’s view that his disease makes him more sensitive to sounds and hearing the beating of the old man’s heart both before killing him and after concealing his pieces under the floorboards, buttress the fact that he is mad and tries to seek cover for it under the pretense of perfect approach in committing the murder. The psychological paradoxes in the personality of the narrator play a role in pushing the narrator over the limit and his capacity for bearing guilt. The psychological paradoxes are an essential factor that enabled the narrator to commit the murder. One of the paradoxes that the narrator has is that he is only nervous and not insane. He becomes overly sensitive to defend his actions and negate insanity. Even more so, the narrator regards his hypersensitivity as an evidence of his sanity and not an indicator of mental illness. Another factor that burdens the nerves of the narrator and pushes him over the limit is his inability to distinguish between real sounds and imagined sounds. The narrator thinks that the heart beat of the old man can be heard by the neighbors and so is driven to murder the man. Later in the story, it is the thumping sound that the narrator starts hearing which compel him into confessing the truth. The narrator believes that the policemen can also hear the thumping of the heart and will come to know of his culpability. Furthermore, the narrator starts to believe that the policemen are only feigning normal conversation and making fun of the distress and anguish that the narrator is experiencing ever since the thumping sound started emanating from the floorboards. The narrator fails to see that the thumping sound is a figment of his own imagination. He fusses over the imagined sounds and ends up shrieking and screaming to open up the floorboards. The psychological contradictions that are present in the story also support the view that it was the hypersensitivity of the narrator that led to his downfall. The narrator was not able to discern between his feelings for love and hate. He loved the old man. He accepted that the old man had never harmed him. He was neither after the old man’s money nor wanted to revenge the old man. The narrator negates any motives that are usually the reason for murdering someone. This is one contradiction that later leads to his downfall. Since the narrator has no justified cause for murdering, he feels guilty later on. The narrator said that he loved the man but detested only the eye. Although the eye is part of the old man and represents his identity, the madness of the narrator renders him blind to the connection between the two. The paranoia and the hypersensitivity of the narrator cause him to do the opposite of what he says and believes. The story projects the view that people can harm the same person that they love. Since the narrator is not able to understand that the hatred that he is showing to the old man’s eye is actually hatred towards the old man, he is able to carry out the act of murder while believing that he loves the old man. The narrator is not able to comprehend the enormity of his act when he carried out the murder. One can trace the plunge of the narrator into madness through the story. One interpretation of the eye is that it embodies the principles of right and wrong. The narrator is not able to demarcate the right and wrong in his actions. However, when he murdered the old man, the gravity of the act dawned on him. This was further intensified by the arrival of the policemen. The policemen are forces that are meant to uproot the wrong. The narrator felt guilty and the arrival of the policemen to correct what has been done wrong makes the narrator understand wrong nature of his actions. His guilty conscience causes him to react very emotionally. He feels that the different parts of the body that he dismembered are involved in a conspiracy against him. He feels that they are working against him, although that is not possible since the old man is dead. It is the guilty conscience of the narrator and his subsequent overreaction to the murder that culminates in him shrieking with fear and admitting to his crime. In conclusion, Tell-Tale Heart is a very graphic story that revolves around mental deterioration. The narrative content of the story exemplifies the paranoia of the speaker (Broda 22). The story uses a combination of imagery, irony and symbolism to bring about a dramatic effect. It also attests to the skill of Edgar Allen Poe in expressing eloquently the dark side of the personality of humans. One can follow the descent of the narrator due to mental deterioration and paranoia through the course of the story. The dramatization of the narration, the psychological contradictions and the paradixes between the narrator’s views on right and wrong and love and hate are the main reasons that led the narrator to feel guilty. The guilty conscience of the narrator causes him to overreact and result in his downfall. Kopley draws a comprehensive conclusion of the story when he said, “A strong and skilful, but to our minds overstrained and repulsive analysis of the feelings and promptings of an insane homicide” (24). Works Cited Bloomfield, Shelley Costa and Shelly Bloomfield Costa. Everything Edgar Allan Poe Book: The Life, Times, and Work of a Tormented Genius. Everything Books, 2007. Print. Broda, Anna. Edgar Allan Poe's Obsession with Human Mind. Norderstedt: GRIN Verlag, 2008. Print. Jackson, James J. In All Things... Moral Reflections & Decisions on Life Issues: Acknowledging God's Answers to Daily Challenges. Oklahoma: Tate Publishing, 2008. Print. Kennedy, X. J. and Dana Gioia. Literature: an introduction to fiction, poetry, and drama. 4th ed. Longman, 2005. Print. Kopley, Richard. The threads of The scarlet letter: a study of Hawthorne's transformative art. New Jersey: University of Delaware Press, 2003. Print. Read More