Who Is The Narrator's Imagination In The Tell Tale Heart
Isaac Newton once said, “[a] man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true, for if the things be false, the apprehension of them is not understanding” (“Isaac Newton Quotes”). In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrator is delusional, and his obsessive and unstable nature shows that the vividness of man’s imagination may cause it to be mistaken as reality, resulting in profound derangement and disturbance. The story revolves around its narrator, who lived with an old man, someone he loved dearly. However, the narrator had begun to imagine and perceive one of the old man’s eyes as evil, and he had become obsessed and fearful. In result, the narrator had done an absurd and unjustified act
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By way of example, the narrator starts his story by profusely refuting the idea that he is mad, telling readers of his utmost caution and careful planning. Also, he then mentions that he feared for his own well-being due to an “evil eye” that in spite of all, had done no harm to the narrator with the exception of being subject to his great dislike. In his paranoia, the narrator insists, “I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture” (Poe 1), when defending his actions. Moreover, the mental instability of the narrator is clear when he seeks justification and self-assurance in the murder by reasoning and attributing it to fear. Hence, the narrator tries to convince the readers and himself by rationalizing that the unforgivable actions of murder were due to necessity and self-protection, when they were rather based on his own vivid imagination, as contrary to reality. He says to himself, “[w]henever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees—very gradually, I decided to take the life of the old man and thus rid myself of the eye for ever” (Poe 1). The narrator had lost himself in his own twistedly unstable mind, and managed to fool none other but himself with his lies. Thus, although the narrator believes himself to be sane, he proves himself to be unstable and ridden with paranoia through his own dark inner thoughts, and his way of falsely justifying his
By way of example, the narrator starts his story by profusely refuting the idea that he is mad, telling readers of his utmost caution and careful planning. Also, he then mentions that he feared for his own well-being due to an “evil eye” that in spite of all, had done no harm to the narrator with the exception of being subject to his great dislike. In his paranoia, the narrator insists, “I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture” (Poe 1), when defending his actions. Moreover, the mental instability of the narrator is clear when he seeks justification and self-assurance in the murder by reasoning and attributing it to fear. Hence, the narrator tries to convince the readers and himself by rationalizing that the unforgivable actions of murder were due to necessity and self-protection, when they were rather based on his own vivid imagination, as contrary to reality. He says to himself, “[w]henever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees—very gradually, I decided to take the life of the old man and thus rid myself of the eye for ever” (Poe 1). The narrator had lost himself in his own twistedly unstable mind, and managed to fool none other but himself with his lies. Thus, although the narrator believes himself to be sane, he proves himself to be unstable and ridden with paranoia through his own dark inner thoughts, and his way of falsely justifying his