summary of the imp of the peverse

Summary of The Imp of the Perverse The Imp of the Perverse is a crazy short story. It explains the thoughts of the narrator about how our minds think. He says that we will pretty much do what we want to do regardless. He leads in to talk about a murder he is planning, and he keeps putting off going through with it. I can defiantly relate to this part of the story he says, “We have a task before us which must be speedily performed. We know that it will be ruinous to make delay. The most important crisis of our life calls, trumpet tongued, for immediate energy and action. We glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence the work, with the anticipation of whose glorious result our whole souls are on fire. It must, it shall be undertaken to-day, and yet we put it off until to-morrow, and why? There is no answer, except that we feel perverse, using the word with no comprehension of the principle.” I relate to this because it strikes me as a definition of procrastination. He continues to talk and he stumbles upon a article that reads of a accidental poisoning of a candle that leads to a nearly fatal illness. He takes into account of the victims’ nightly reading and his poorly ventilated apartment. He goes through as planned with the murder and all is well until the guilt sets in on his body so much that he has to turn himself in. He was sentenced to be hung.

The thing I liked the most about this short story is he explains when our minds think about something that is possible and frowned upon, or illegal, we are urged to do it not because we have to but because we want to. In the story he says, “That single thought is enough. The impulse increases to a wish, the wish to a desire, the desire to an uncontrollable longing, and the longing (to the deep regret and mortification of the speaker, and in defiance of all consequences) is indulged.” I completely understand what he is saying and I believe that is how our minds work.