Edgar Allan Poe and Insanity

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 “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “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 fascination with the dark side of human nature and mental illnesses, which was present in many of Poe’s works. People thought that mental illnesses were to be related to immoral behavior, and were the result of diseases like syphilis (“Tell Tale”). In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrator, tormented by the old man whom he lives with, ultimately murders the poor innocent man. The narrator has no real rational motive for killing the old man; actually, he confesses to loving the old man. The narrator admits that there was “no object” nor “passion” for killing the old man because he “had never wronged [him]. He had never given [him] insult” and “for his gold [he] had no desire” (Poe, “Tell-Tale” 445). The narrator is not even sure to what his motive was. He thinks it was the old man’s “pale blue eye, with the film over it” (Poe, “Tell-Tale” 445). The narrator detested the cloudy film over his pale blue eyes so much that when he saw it, his “ blood ran cold; and so by degrees--very gradually” that made him make “up [his] mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid [himself] of the eye forever” (Poe, “Tell-Tale” 445). He becomes obsessed with this old man’s vulture like eye, believing that the eye is cursed. The narrator describes the eye