Insanity In Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

“First sign of madness, talking to your own head.” JK Rowling said this in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix the fifth book of the Harry Potter series. There is a lot of meaning within that, especially when one is talking about the level of insanity of the narrator in a Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe. Look again at the quote, Rowling makes sure to emphasise “to” not “in” as if they are separate beings. As if he is telling the story to someone else. Clearly the Narrator is mentally insane, which will be proven in the following essay. Now that is not to say that the opposing side does not have a compelling argument but centan points will be able to disprove their claims. When it comes to the 11 different signs of mental illness it usually takes two or three of these signs to show mental illness and the Narrator shows eight. The M'naghten Criteria will be explored and use those criteria to determine if the Narrator is mentally insane or not and thus is eligible for the insanity
These criteria are used to figure out whether or not a person was insane or not at the time of the crime. According to Laurence Miller, Ph.D. ¨To pass the M'naghten Criteria you have to have a defect of reason and behavior. It has to be by reason of some mental disorder, by reason of some mental disease, or defect so severely impaired that you do not understand the nature and quality of your actions. Or if you do not understand that what you're doing is wrong.¨ So to summarize, to pass the criteria you must not understand that what you are doing is wrong or you must have no control over your actions. In a Tell Tale Heart the Narrator seems to have no second thoughts the moment he sees the eye of the Old Man. He immediately killed him without considering what he was doing. He had no after thought and immediately started disposing of the body without remorse of the action he had just committed. If this doesn't pass the M'naghten Criteria nothing