American poet, critic, short story writer, and author of such macabre works as “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1840);
I looked upon the scene before me - upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain - upon the bleak walls - upon the vacant eye-like windows - upon a few rank sedges - and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees - with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium - the bitter lapse into everyday life - the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart - an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it - I paused to think - what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher?Contributing greatly to the genres of horror and science fiction, Poe is now considered the father of the modern detective story and highly lauded as a poet. Walt Whitman , in his essay titled “Edgar Poe's Significance” wrote;
Poe's verses illustrate an intense faculty for technical and abstract beauty, with the rhyming art to excess, an incorrigible propensity toward nocturnal themes, a demoniac undertone behind every page. … There is an indescribable magnetism about the poet's life and reminiscences, as well as the poems.Poe's psychologically thrilling tales examining the depths of the human psyche earned him much fame during his lifetime and after his death. His own life was marred by tragedy at an early age (his parents died before he was three years old) and in his oft-quoted works we can see his darkly passionate sensibilities—a tormented and sometimes neurotic obsession with death and violence and overall appreciation for the beautiful yet tragic mysteries of life. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. —“Elonora”. Poe's literary criticisms of poetry and the art of short story writing include “The Poetic Principal” and “The Philosophy of Composition”. There have been numerous collections of his works published and many of them have been inspiration for popular television and film adaptations including “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Black Cat”, and “The Raven”. He has been the subject of numerous biographers and has significantly influenced many other authors even into the 21st Century.
Edgar Poe was born on 19 January 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of actors Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins (1787-1811) and David Poe (1784-1810). He had a brother named William Henry (1807-1831) and sister Rosalie (1811-1874). After the death of his parents Edgar was taken in by Frances (d.1829) and John Allan (d.1834), a wealthy merchant in Richmond, Virginia. More
THE MADNESS OF THE NARRATOR IN “THE TELL-TALE HEART”
(written by Nguyen Hoang Ngoc Trang - DH02G-AV28)
“The tell-tale heart” is a story about a person killing an old man with vulture eye and afterward admitting the crime. The narrator was sexually unidentified as well as not directly characterized by the writer. The narrator himself confirmed that he (I may use “he” to refer the narrator for convenience) was not mad, but the way he thought and his actions make me unable not to say him a mad person.
The narrator kept saying that he was not a mad man, that he was very alert and cunning, and that a mad man could not do things he did, which prove he was mad. For sure, a drunken man rarely says “I am drunk” and a mad man never knows he is mad. I think the situation is the same with the narrator. From the beginning, I had never had an idea that the narrator was mad until he began to say: “You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing …” My suspicion was greater when he continued talked about his madness: “Ha! Would a madman have been so wise as this?”, then “And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses?” and then “If you still think me mad …” His strong reactions about the fact that people might think he was mad – actually, that was just his imagination – denounced his madness.
The narrator wanted to kill an old man – a human being – just because of his vulture eye was very abnormal. It was very eccentric reason. He used to assert, “I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire.” Thus, there was actually no reason to kill that old kind man. A normal person will not kill a human of no sin who unfortunately has a deformed eye, except that person is mentally disordered. He tried to separate the vulture eye from the old man and thought that he killed that evil eye, not the old man. Meanwhile, we all can see a fact that killing the eye means killing that old man and that we cannot separate it from a person.
An ordinary man will execute his scheme as soon as he has a chance. However, the narrator waited for seven days to kill the old man “And this I did for seven long nights, every night just as midnight ….” Every night, he murmured outside the door of the old man's bedroom, moved slowly, holding a lantern in his hand, carefully opened the door, and was very cautious with every movement just to look at the old man sleeping with his closed eyes. Seven days, seven opportunities with much his time and effort were missed by himself. Just as the eighth night when he saw the evil eye opened, he committed the crime. His action certainly resulted from a disordered mind; and one more time it showed his abnormal thought that he was just killing the evil eye.
Next, the way he killed the old man and treated his dead body proved he was mad. While killing and chopping a man was a severe crime, he was very excited and proud to do that. He thought chopping a human was okay and he did id even when the old man had been “stone dead.” It was often a thought of a mad murderer who was so crazy and eager to kill his victim. Moreover, he boasted about his concealment of the body. He hided the dead body “so cleverly so cunningly, that no human eye – not even his – could have detected anything wrong.” And he was actually so cunning that I thought the police would not find out the truth. Again, he was not normal. He invited the police to go into the room that he killed the old man. He put a chair right upon the spot he hided the body and sat on it. This murderer dared to take risk because he was too confident about his cleverness, because he thought everything he did was logical and perfect. His overconfidence was again a very abnormal thing.
If a slaughterer kills someone for money, because of revenge or love, it can be understood. Meanwhile, the narrator in this story built up revenge with an ugly eye which made him frightened. It was just an eye, a harmless eye, everyone knows that. However, the narrator seemed to be so afraid of it, so obsessed of if that he thought it was a dangerous enemy. A person who was obsessed of one eye, tried to eliminate it, then laugh satisfactorily when it was abolished, and then was overconfident about the work, and finally himself admitted the crime. It was totally the actions of a mad slaughterer. It was the symptoms of a person with paranoia.
The heartbeats could be heard many times by the narrator, but never did he realize they were just his own heart beating. It was the heart beating that urged him to kill the old man, “I was the beating of the old man heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of the drum stimulates the soldier into courage.” It was also the heart beating that drove the murderer so crazy that he had to admit the deed, “… Tear up the planks! Here, here! – It is the beating of his hideous heart!” He, in all times, thought that the heart beating was that of the old man. In fact, it was his own hatred that committed him into crime and it was his conscience that results his confession. He was mad because he could not realize this. He was mad because he was unable to control his own emotions, his abhorrence that were purely the reason for his crime.
From what we have discussed, the narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” could not be a man with merely normal mind. Everything from his point of view was very strange or he seemed to look at the reality very differently from normal people. Edgar Allan Poe successfully analyzed the psychology of a criminal who suffered from paranoia which made him unable to control his emotions and his spirit.-------------------------
The murderer is not mad at all
(written by Dang Xuan Thai Ngan DH02G-AV28)
Edgar Allan Poe wrote the story “The Tell – Tale Heart” to focus on the bad characteristic of human nature, that is the inability to resist evil deed. Under the influence of evil thoughts, the murderer in the story acts like a man who loses his mind, but in fact, he (although the murderer is unidentified, I would like to use the pronoun “he” to make my essay shorter and clearer) is normal and sensible enough to rationalize his murder and eventually he has his guilt on his conscience and admits all. .
He is not a mad man because he is completely conscious of what he is doing. Although he has no real motive to kill the old man “Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me....For his gold I had no desire”, he clearly states that it is the old man's eyes that make him feel frightened and as a result he is determined to destroy the eyes. A mad man never has such clear explanation or sets up such a concrete objective! To the readers, may be his reason for killing the old man is irrational, but to him, getting rid of the vulture eyes is a good reason to take the life of one person.
If the murderer is a mad man, he can not think of such a detailed plan to kill the old man. He patiently does his job for 7 long nights with much care and caution, which shows that he really has a normal healthy mind. Even worse, he behaves kindly to the old man the whole week before he murders him so that the victim will never suspect him. Also, he dares to ask the old man if he can sleep soundly at night and prides himself on how well he disguises his cruel intentions and the violent thoughts he kept hidden deep within his mind. He deliberately tries his best to achieve his plan. How carefully he planned everything out and deceived the old man. A mad man never knows how to keep his true feeling hidden and how to clear away suspicion.
The murderer also prides himself on his intelligence and the calculated nature of his crime. If he is a mad man, how can he have such a sound mind? He waits for 7 nights because the old man's eyes are always close and his reliable judgment tells him that there is no reason to commit violence when there is no “Evil Eye” to destroy. Obviously, he is conscious enough to identify what makes he want to kill the man.
The story is told in the first person point of view: the murderer is also the narrator. I think that if he is a mad man, he can not remember clearly each action he performs. In contrast, this murderer describes the sequence of events fluently without any disorder and confusion. Even he knows how to defend himself against attempted murder. To me, he is more careful with his plan and his words than any other normal person!
Another piece of evidence convinces me of his normal mind is the cautious actions he takes after he kills the old man: he examines the body and places his hand on the heart for many minutes to assure himself of the victim's death. I think these actions are like a step to check if there is any mistake to his perfect plan. More importantly, although he knows that the man is really dead and his eyes will not trouble him no more, he conceals the dismembered corpse so that nobody can discover his guilt. Such a perfection can not be attached to a mad man. Some of my friends argue that the murderer suffers from paranoid, the first sign of madness. But I think if he is really haunted by the “vulture eyes”, he will do everything (even kills the old man ) to get rid of the eyes, except for dismembering the body into pieces and concealing it. On the contrary, he is so skillful that he knows exactly the things he needs to do to escape from being brought to trial and capital punishment.
By using first person point of view, Poe shows the murderer's emotion and makes the readers feel as if they are observing the whole event. This writing style not only gives me the feeling of worry and excitement when following the murderer's thoughts but also makes my mind overwhelmed with the judgment: is the murderer mad or not? Throughout the story, the narrator describes his murder and continually defends himself against madness. Based on this detail, my friends conclude that he is mad, because a mad man never knows that he is mad and only mad men continually insist on his sensible mind from the beginning till the end of the story. However, I have quite different ideas. People around the world appreciate Poe's works for the mystery and the secret way of writing. Unlike other contemporary writers who were writing about real life in America, Poe was concerning himself with the subconscious— dreams, nightmares, fear and guilt . His works deal with the depths of human fears and desires, which often allowing the “reality” of the stories to fade away and make room for a reality only found within the mind. As a result, in order to discover what Poe wants to express, we must be good deciphers. I personally think that if the murderer is mad, the story bears no meaningful message and it is just a report of a man who suffers from mental illness about his murder. Similarly, because a mad man does not have to be responsible for his behaviour, if he is arrested, he will be thrown into a mental hospital. That's all. Not any moral lesson can be drawn from the story. But here, the murderer confesses his guilt. His confession is a symbol for the victory of the good over the evil spirit. Although no one can discover his murder, the feeling of guilt is too overwhelming to bear and eventually he confesses his crime.
Poe intentionally lets the murderer clearly state that he is not mad many times throughout the story. This repetition creates a lot of effects on the readers. It not only makes us feel curious about the narrator and attracts our attention, but also challenges our thinking to discover his complicated psychological state. I think this story demonstrates a mental conflict within the narrator, that is the state of obsession (with the old man's eye), which in turn leads to loss of control and eventually results in murder. I have read some of Poe's poems and discover that he has a very special writing style which blurs my judgment and distracts my thinking with a lot of coded details. In this story, I think “madness” is used as a device to express an abstract idea - a mental conflict - as well as to confuse the readers (I think this is one of the characteristics of his writing style) rather than to refer to a mental disease.
In short, to answer the question “Is the murderer is mad?” I say “No” because “madness” in the story is a code, a symbol that the readers have to decode and analyze. It represents the loss of self – control, the inability to think clearly before the “Evil Eye” which symbolizes bad prejudices and unacceptable desires.
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In “The Tell- Tale Heart”, Edgar Allan Poe specially described all the details that the murderer planned to kill the old man and his clever pretence to hide the police when they came into the house. In your viewpoint, why did the author make the murderer confess at the end of the story?
(written by Tran Thi Kim Chau - DH02G-AV28)
The story “The Cop and the Anthem” happened with many funny details about Soapy. When he deserved being caught by the police for what he had done, he escaped from the arrest unexpectedly. Yet, when he did nothing and had just had good resolutions, he was suddenly under arrest. The ironic point here is the time when he wanted to better himself is also the moment his freedom was taken away and he could not carry out a resolution. From my point of view, despite the fact he finally wanted to resolve, it is good for him to be imprisoned for the two following reasons.
As I read the story, I think Soapy is a simple man. It is the first reason why I believe that to be imprisoned is good for Soapy. He is simple in his way of thinking. He thought that being imprisoned would bring him a comfortable life with food to eat and a bed to sleep right after having a meal. Additionally, the way he did in order for the police to catch him can point out how simple his thinking is. Although readers could see that Soapy is crafty with his action, he just did that way to satisfy his crave for the prison. Funnily, life and things are not as simple as people often expect. That's why to be imprisoned has been out of his reach for several times.
Second, when being imprisoned, Soapy will have time, exactly three months, to rethink about all the bad things in the past. He has done many things bad but he did not pay any thing for that until then. Fairly speaking, time in prison makes him pay the cost. Besides, Soapy used to have a want to be imprisoned. As the story went on, he tried in vain to be arrested but he still could not be caught. Therefore, when being under arrest, he can spend his life on the Island as he used to crave for. After experiencing all, I think he can be more aware of his own living and the value of freedom so that he is able to treasure and cherish his life much more.
Another reason why it is good for Soapy to be imprisoned is that he will have time to assure his awakening that benefits his long resolution. He has led a bad life for a long time while he has been awoken just in a short moment. No one can be sure of his awakening. He can be enlightened in one moment with the anthem's melody. Conversely, he may turn to be bad again in other moment without the anthem resounding his spirit. From this point, I think time in prison will help him be more resolved to a revolution in him.
In conclusion, to me, it is good for Soapy to be imprisoned for he is a simple man, he will have time to think about his life in the past and to assure his awakening. Having a thought of being back to a helpful person is good; however, from thinking to acting, there is a considerable distance. Everything depends on a person himself. If he has critical thinking, he can overcome all challenges to make his aspiration come true.
Do you think that the reason to kill the old man of the murderer is reasonable?
(written by Le Thi Nguyet Thu - DH02G-AV28)
In our whole lives, we always try to find ourselves a reason for doing something whether it is right or wrong. Some reasons are acceptable, some are not. However, to criticize a reason, we have to base on many aspects. In The Tell-Tale Heart, a famous story of Edgar Allan Poe, the murderer gave us a reason for killing the old man. It is because of the eye. In my opinion, it is unreasonable in three aspects.
The first aspect is the relationship between the two characters. Through the first person narrator, Edgar Allan Poe built up a man with a mental disease. The narrator told us about an old man with whom the relationship was unclear. “I love the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult.” The story was opened up with a bright picture of the two men. They might be strangers, or family members. But whoever they were, the old man was still a good man and the murderer had no reason to kill or even hate him. There is a rule that you must not do anything wrong to a person if he does nothing to harm you. Moreover the victim was an old man. From my point of view, old men seem to be so weak, harmless and respectable. They are like living books for me to learn, to respect and to take care of.
The second aspect is the narrator's obsession with the old man's eye. He killed the old man not because of his gold. “For his gold I had no desire.” The murderer did confess that it was because of the eye. The old man's eye through his description was really a vulture eye - “a pale blue eye, with a film over it”. It is true that this kind of eye can easily scare anyone. “Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold”. The narrator had a feeling of danger when looking at the eye. This leaded to his reaction to protect himself. The fixation forced him to concoct a plan to kill the old man so that the eye would also be death. The narrator tried to convince the reader he was not insane and that the reaction is natural. But I can easily recognize the narrator indeed was out of control. The eye was just the motivation to the murder. Knowing that he had mental disease, he tried to search for justification to kill. And also, he ignored the fact that he was mad. “I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad?” He proved himself that he was wise and reasonable. But that was just his attempt at hiding his own fear.
The last aspect is the narrator's conflicting feelings of responsibility to the old man. “I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him.” That is a way of the narrator to show how wisely he proceeded. But it is just the feeling of guilty. “And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber, and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he passed the time”. The narrator wanted to show his confidence and audacity, even pride, in his plan to kill. But the more he did, the more unreasonable I feel about it. The murderer himself knew that he was doing wrong, but he could not stop it. His struggle was evident as he waited to kill the old man in his sleep. He did not want to face the old man when he killed him. On the other hand, the narrator could not justify the killing unless the vulture eye was open. And when the fear of the eye was destroyed, another fear was created. That was the heart beat. The confession of the murderer at the end of the story shows how guilty he felt. Because the murder is unreasonable, the confession comes as a natural rule. The feeling of guilty will haunt him forever.
Having a good relationship with the old man, obsessing with the eye and feeling guilty, all these aspects make the reason of killing unreasonable. We cannot kill or even harm anybody just because of his eye. That is just a weak reason for not saying that we cannot get over our fear.