Papar No. 10 - The Tell - Tale Heart - Critical analysis from the Perspective of Psychology

The Tell - Tale Heart - Critical analysis from the Perspective of Psychology

Introduction of Story

"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in January 1843. It is a gothic story which involved the psychology of man that how psychology operates and it draws man to become devil. It is told by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of his sense (sanity), while describing a murder he committed.

“TRUE! --Nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses --not destroyed --not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily --how calmly I can tell you the whole story.” – This is the starting of the story.

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.

A nameless person explains that he is and was extremely nervous, but is not and was not insane. Rather, the narrator has a "disease" which makes all his senses, especially his hearing, very sensitive. To prove that he isn't insane, the narrator shares an event from his past. Let's jump into his tale: The narrator has an idea that he can't shake. He loves the old man and has nothing against him. Except…his horrible eye, which is "pale blue with a film over it". The narrator hates the eye and decides to kill the old man to be free of it. To that end, the narrator goes to the old man's room every night at 12am, for seven days. Each night the narrator opens the man's door and puts in a lantern. After the lantern, the narrator puts his head through the doorway, extremely slowly, and then opens the lantern so a tiny beam of light shines on the old man's eye. Each night the old man doesn't open his eye, so the narrator feels that he can't kill him. On the eighth night, the old man hears the narrator at the door and wakes up. On this particular night, unlike the preceding seven nights, the narrator's hand slipped on the clasp of the lantern, and the old man immediately "sprang up in bed, crying out — 'Who's there?'" He can see nothing because the shutters are all closed. Here, as in most of Poe's stories, the action proper of the story takes place within a closed surrounding — that is, the murder of the old man is within the confines of his small bedroom with the shutters closed and in complete darkness The narrator hangs out there in the dark for a long time, then, with a scream, plunges into the totally dark room, opening the lantern, and shining light on the old man's eye. The narrator drags the old man, who has only screamed once, off the bed, and then pulls the bed on top of the man. When the narrator hears the man's heart stop beating, he removes the bed and checks to make sure the old man is really dead, which he is. So the narrator cuts him up and hides his remains under the floor. Then three policemen come. A neighbor had heard a scream and called them. The narrator says he screamed while sleeping, and claims that the old man is out of town. After convincing the cops nothing bad is going down, the narrator brings them into the old man's  bedroom, and they all sit down to chat.  While they are all shooting the breeze, the narrator starts hearing a terrible ticking noise, which gets louder and louder until the narrator freaks out, confesses, and points the police to the old man's body, state that the sound is coming from the old man's heart. Then narrator confesses his deeds and accepts that he had killed the old man. He showed the pieces of body of old man.

To begin to understand the motive of the narrator in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” it is necessary to first analyze Poe’s life. Throughout his life, he lost nearly everyone that he loved, whether it be by leaving (his father), their deaths (his mother and wife/first cousin), or simply growing apart (his foster family). Due to all of these incidents, it is very possible that Poe developed abandonment issues; Poe was most likely very afraid of losing any more people that he cared about unexpectedly.

Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell -Tale Heart is a horror story, psychological thriller and confession written from a first person perspective. It covers issues on psychotic behaviour, paranoia, guilt and murder through the language, structure and narrative form. Poe believed that all good literature must create a united effect on the reader and reveal truth or evoke emotions.

Throughout the reading of story, reader can understand that there is a factor of Psychology, that how its operate and how it inspires human to do some deed. Here reader can apply psychology of that servant that the Vulture eye of Old man, leads him to do murder of an old man.  Let’s discuss some psychology aspect of narrator.

v Vulture Eye

v Id, Ego, Superego,

v Mental Conflict

v Guilt and Innocence

v Sanity and Insanity

v Fear and Terror

v Attempt of Crime

v Acceptance of Crime

********

v Vulture Eye

The narrator gives the background of the story by telling the reader he plans to kill this old man because he is guilty for having a vulture eye, and that the old man himself is not guilty for his death. The narrator hated the old man’s eye because it reminded him of a vulture; vultures are known for devouring dead things, so they generally remind people of death. The narrator did not like to think about people dying, so he had to murder the man to rid himself of that; this was another motive. It is related to Poe’s life because of all of the people Poe lost that he cared about.

“I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.”

Here, narrator explains that he had great respect and love for the old man. But there is something intolerable in his mind, that the Eye of old man was something strange for servant/narrator. When he saw that "hideous veiled eye," he became furious. Here, narrator could not understand that why the eye of old man inspires for the murder of old man. That vulture eye disturbed the narrator and then he made decision to kill that old man. He chose to murder the man instead of growing closer to him and having to later mourn his loss. The narrator hated the old man’s eye because it reminded him of a vulture; vultures are known for devouring dead things, so they generally remind people of death. The narrator did not like to think about people dying, so he had to murder the man to rid himself of that; this was another motive. It is related to Poe’s life because of all of the people Poe lost that he cared about. So reflection of psychology of writer may found here.  

v Id, Ego, Superego

Id, ego, and super-ego are the three parts of the psychic apparatus defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche; they are the three theoretical constructs in terms of whose activity and interaction our mental life is described. According to this model of the psyche, the id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual trends; the superego plays the critical and moralizing role; and the ego is the organized, realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego. The super-ego can stop one from doing certain things that one's id may want to do.

·       The id

The id is the unorganized part of the personality structure that contains a human's basic, instinctual drives. Id is the only component of personality that is present from birth. It is the source of our bodily needs, wants, desires, and impulses, particularly our sexual and aggressive drives.

The id acts according to the "pleasure principle"— the psychic force that motivates the tendency to seek immediate gratification of any impulse —defined as, seeking to avoid pain or unpleasure aroused by increases in instinctual tension.  If the mind was solely guided by the id, individuals would find it difficult to wait patiently at a restaurant, while feeling hungry, and would most likely grab food from neighboring tables. The id demands immediate satisfaction and when this happens we experience pleasure, when it is denied we experience ‘unpleasure’ or pain. The id is not affected by reality, logic or the everyday world.

·       The Ego

Initially the ego is 'that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world. (Freud 1923).

The ego acts according to the reality principle; i.e. it seeks to please the id's drive in realistic ways that will benefit in the long term rather than bring grief. At the same time, Freud concedes that as the ego "attempts to mediate between id and reality, it is often obliged to cloak the Unconscious commands of the id with its own Preconscious rationalizations, to conceal the id's conflicts with reality, to profess ... to be taking notice of reality even when the id has remained rigid and unyielding."

The reality principle that operates the ego is a regulating mechanism that enables the individual to delay gratifying immediate needs and function effectively in the real world. An example would be to resist the urge to grab other people's belongings, but instead to purchase those items. It helps us to organize our thoughts and make sense.

·       The Superego

The superego incorporates the values and morals of society which are learned from one's parents and others. It develops around the age of 3 – 5 during the phallic stage of psychosexual development. The superego's function is to control the id's impulses, especially those which society forbids, such as sex and aggression. It also has the function of persuading the ego to turn to moralistic goals rather than simply realistic ones and to strive for perfection.

Edger Allen Poe’s short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” shows a narrator being driven mainly by his ego.

The narrator starts out by claiming that he is not mad and continues to make this claim throughout the story using a logical approach. As his story continues though it clearly shows opposite of it what he claims, but the narrator seems to refuse that he is insane and uses many arguments to prove it. The narrator is fixed on doing his crime with extreme caution, but in the end, his ego causes him to confess his deed. When one first reads “The Tell-Tale Heart” they are inclined to feel that it his id not his ego controlling him, but when you look closer more evidence seems to point to the fact the his ego is more in control.

This not to say that his id and superego do not play apart in his action, for clearly they do, but the id and the superego only play a small part in the narrator’s thoughts. From the beginning of the story it clear that the narrator’s ego is in control. The last few sentences in the first paragraph clearly show this “The disease had sharpened my senses—not destroyed—not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily—how calmly I can tell you the whole story.” (Poe, 40)The end of the first paragraph really shows.

Logically speaking a mad man would not be able recount murder. One critic refers the narrator as being “an egocentric who derives pleasure from cruelty.” (Pritchard, 144) This idea of the narrator being egocentric (or self-centered) is supported by another critic who says he show the stages of “Ego-Evil.”

v Mental Conflict

Narrator of this story has a conflict of mental ability. Characterization of the servant is displeasing.

“TRUE! --Nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?” This line shows the condition of narrator, that he is facing problem regarding his decision to murder the old man. The word ‘Nervous’ explain that he is nervous. The repeated word ‘Very, Very’ is shows the unpleasant time of narrator. Here, the metal condition of narrator is unpleasing.

For seven nights, the narrator opens the door of the old man's room, in order to shine a sliver of light onto the "evil eye". However, the old man's vulture-eye is always closed, making it impossible to "do the work”. On this particular night, unlike the preceding seven nights, the narrator's hand slipped on the clasp of the lantern, and the old man immediately "sprang up in bed, crying out — 'Who's there?'" He can see nothing because the shutters are all closed. Here, as in most of Poe's stories, the action proper of the story takes place within a closed surrounding — that is, the murder of the old man is within the confines of his small bedroom with the shutters closed and in complete darkness The narrator hangs out there in the dark for a long time, then, with a scream, plunges into the totally dark room, opening the lantern, and shining light on the old man's eye. The narrator drags the old man, who has only screamed once, off the bed, and then pulls the bed on top of the man. . When the narrator hears the man's heart stop beating, he removes the bed and checks to make sure the old man is really dead, which he is. Here, narrator is also facing problem that how he can kill an innocent old man. Narrator can see an old man as a innocent only when he cannot see the eye of old man, because that is an Pale blue eye which motivates to kill him. So here delay of deed shows the conflict of narrator. 

In the end of the story, the narrator starts hearing a terrible ticking noise, which gets louder and louder until the narrator freaks out, confesses, and points the police to the old man's body, state that the sound is coming from the old man's heart. Then narrator confesses his deeds and accepts that he had killed the old man. He showed the pieces of body of old man. Here reader can see that how terror of his did cover the servant. Finally, he has accepted his crime. So it is reflected that the mental condition of narrator/servant was depressed.

v Guilt and Innocence

“Guilt and Innocence”, after completing his deed, he calmly make pieces of body of old man and hide under the floor. He did it very effectively. Then he clean the floor, and arranged thing in the bed room of old man. Then police man came to inspect that is there any foul play happened in the home, because the neighbor had listen the scream. Servant kindly shows that all house to police man, then offering them to drink. Murdering the old-man for no apparent reason, he hears his interminable heartbeat and his sense of guilt is released through the confession from the police, by shouting at them. Thus narrator felt guilty and accept that he had murdered the old man.

However, the narrator feels that he is innocent in the story. He is just like an innocent boy, who takes care of his master–an old man. He takes care of an old man. So it can reflect that the narrator is innocence. But The Vulture Eye of Old Man made him mad.  He actually proud of his calmness. He plans of murdering the old man. Also, the most key point that can recognize is the narrator admitted that there are uncontrollable forces that drive him to commit violence act. SO it can said that there was a calmness in the servant, but something was intolerable for that he loses his innocence.

v Sanity and Insanity

“I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire.”

In the story, narrator uttered this word that how it affect, this line shows the understanding of the narrator, that he had no desire to harm the old man. He has a good sense. But there is some forces which he couldn’t discover that why he planned to murder the old man.

From the first line of the story, ‘True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but why will you say that I am mad?’ The readers can already discover that there is something strange had occurred. Although he tries to convey the readers that he is sane, through conveying, it had already amplified that he is lack of sanity. The narrator argued that sane is being methodical, calculating, however, the confusing language reveals that he is disordered.

After seeing the eye of the old man, narrator loses his patient and sanity. Then he planned to murder an old man. So here the outer force, that motivate narrator to kill that old man.

v Fear and Terror

Edgar Allan Poe use is directly linked with the narrator’s psychological state. The story is told through the unreliable narrator’s point of view, enhancing the sense of cold detachment while the crimes were committed. The unreliable narrator’s fear is illustrated with descriptive language, which was often used for describing the old man’s vulture’-like eye. This eye is a symbol of the narrator’s fear, the trigger to his insanity, and also the narrator’s reason for why the old man should be killed. Expressed with Poe’s ingenious use of words and sentences, the narrator’s twisted logic reveals his insanity, although he claims otherwise. At the beginning of the story he intended to show his sanity by “how calmly I can tell you the whole story”. (Poe, 1) The narrator’s tone was nervous and changes rapidly between calm, logical statements to irrational and frantic outbursts. These outbursts were often spoken in short sentences. Poe’s frequent use of exclamations also reveals the narrator’s nervousness. The short sentences and exclamations heightens tension and fear, supporting the story’ suspense, then finally breaking at the climax of the story when the narrator’s fear drove him to insanity.

“TRUE! --Nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?” This line shows the condition of narrator, that he is feeling fear, regarding his decision to murder the old man. The word ‘Nervous’ explain that he is nervous. The repeated word ‘Very, Very’ is shows the fear and terror of narrator. Here, the metal condition of narrator is fearful.

v Attempt of Crime

The narrator hates the eye and decides to kill the old man to be free of it. According to story, reader can understand that how did happen. Because narrator came seven nights at 12 a.m. for the murdering of an old man, but unfortunately he couldn’t see the Vulture Eye of an old man. On eight nights, the narrator goes to the old man's room the old man hears the narrator at the door and wakes up. On this particular night, unlike the preceding seven nights, the narrator's hand slipped on the clasp of the lantern, and the old man immediately "sprang up in bed, crying out — 'Who's there?'" He can see nothing because the shutters are all closed. Here, as in most of Poe's stories, the action proper of the story takes place within a closed surrounding — that is, the murder of the old man is within the confines of his small bedroom with the shutters closed and in complete darkness The narrator hangs out there in the dark for a long time, then, with a scream, plunges into the totally dark room, opening the lantern, and shining light on the old man's eye. The narrator drags the old man, who has only screamed once, off the bed, and then pulls the bed on top of the man. When the narrator hears the man's heart stop beating, he removes the bed and checks to make sure the old man is really dead, which he is. So the narrator cuts him up and hides his remains under the floor. As, the narrator murdered the old man.

v Acceptance of Crime

After murdering an old man, suddenly narrator listen a low heartbeat, then he said that suddenly there came to his ears "a low, dull, quick sound": It was the beating of the old man's heart. It is at this point in the story that we have our first ambiguity based upon the narrator's over-sensitivity and madness. The question is, obviously, whose heart does he hear? We all know that in moments of stress and fright our own heartbeat increases so rapidly that we feel every beat. Consequently, from the psychological point of view, the narrator thinks that he is hearing his own increased heartbeat. It is established at the beginning of the story that he is over-sensitive — that he can hear and feel things that others cannot.

Thus, as the beating of the heart becomes intolerable, he screams out to the police: "I admit the deed! — tear up the planks! here, here! — it is the beating of his hideous heart!"

The sound of “heartbeats” is metaphorically the sound of the inner guilt in the narrator, and this guilt made the narrator admit his crimes.

Many repetitions of single words, but when the narrator hears the heartbeat in the presence of the policemen, his nervousness increases and so does the repetition of his words. “It grew louder—louder— louder!...no, no...this I thought, and this I think…louder! Louder! Louder! Louder!...here, here!—it is the beating of his hideous heart!” This line shows the mental condition of narrator, that whenever we are in fear we used to repeat word, so this repeated words shows the conflict of narrator.

Conclusion

So, after reading the story, reader can say that there are psychological factor, which motivates to murder tan old man. After completing did, the factor of psychology of narrator forced to accept his did. Thus the psychology working in both the sector first to murder an old man then accept that did.