The narrator tries to prove how sane he really is before the reader has read enough to make any kind of judgment about him. The narrator is so scared of the old man's evil eye that he has decided to kill him just to get rid of the evil eye. The narrator admits to committing a senseless crime. The old man was never mean to him or treated him wrong. The old man had nothing of value that the narrator wanted.
From the very first line of the story we can see that the sanity of the narrator is questionable. He says, “True! —nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am: but why will you say that I am mad?” His sanity is questioned from the very beginning. Then he goes on to describe the old mans “vulture” eye that eventually drives him to murder. This apparently is the only thing that drives him to do so.
The image of this poor beast’s face became more eternal in my mind with every mutilating shot from Rat Kiley’s gun, sending it into a state of motionless misery. Kiley’s actions were a reflection of his angst and therefore, this story illustrates the ugliness of war. While I do favor the story’s passion, I find this story would be difficult for the majority of its readers to label as true, just as the narrator explains, “You can tell a true war story by the questions you ask….You’d feel cheated if it never happened. Without the grounding reality, it’s just a trite bit of puffery, pure Hollywood” (O’Brien 956). This tale seems too bizarre and melodramatic which creates a fictional sense, and so, contradicts the narrator‘s main point.
Poe’s narrator appears to be very anonyms. Neither a gender nor name is provided for the reader. It is clear that the narrator, whom appears to be a male, is obsessed with the old man, and appears to suffer from monomania and paranoia. It is seen in the way he plan his murder, and how he is hallucinating in the end of the story, when he hears the heart beat. The narrator tells us little about himself “Nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am” He also seems to always try and convince the reader that he is not insane “I heard many things in hell.
“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.” (1) Can anyone reading this honestly conclude anything else of the narrator but total madness? He continues with attempting to justify his action in murdering the old man by trying to convince the reader it isn’t that the narrator didn’t love or like the old man, but that the old man had an eye that drove him to it. “I loved the old man. He had never wronged me.
For instance, Mr Collins long, pompous speeches help the reader to realise his character within the novel and how he is a person who is full of pride in himself (which is one of the themes of the novel). Chapter 19 also contains authorial intervention. The authorial intervention in this chapter helps to not only tell the story but commentates the dialogue of the characters “she could not use the short pause he allowed in any attempt to stop him farther, and he continued.” The authorial intervention seems to show Austen’s annoyance towards Mr Collins who seems to constantly talk and helps make the reader sympathise with Elizabeth for being on the other end of his constant speeches. In all, through Austen’s use of the third
The Tell-Tale Heart Assignment: We notice that some details in Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” make a literal reading of the story rather difficult. Advance and defend a figurative reading of the story consistent with the story’s details. Poe seems to focus on creating mood throughout his story. Many symbols in this story are interpreted in several different ways depending on the reader. These symbols throughout the story include the old mans eye, the heartbeat and the contradiction between love and hate in which I will be talking about in this paper.
Candace Willard English 102 Essay 2 The first-person narration style of "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edger Allen Poe is essential in creating the original quality of the story. The reason this is so important in this particular story, is because when a sane killer, Montresor, is allowed to tell the story from his point of view, the reader gets a unique, disturbing look into the calmness of his mind. The audience can more clearly see how he thinks and feels; which the audience does not normally get in mainstream commercial literature. The reason the narration style is so important to the tone of the story is because it lets the reader become personally acquainted with the thoughts and intentions of the main character. Since the reader somewhat knows the outcome from the beginning, it allows certain ironies to make sense to the reader.
I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this!” (Poe, Heart 657). Here the narrator is saying the only reason he murdered the old man was because of the evil eye, which he couldn’t bare to see for another day; as they lived in the same house. This is quite frightening to think about because everyone has their own imperfections but it doesn’t mean that people who cannot stand these traits will kill people because of them. “Shaking in every limb, I groped my way back to the wall- resolving there to perish rather than risk the terrors of the wells, of which my imagination now pictured many in various positions about the dungeon” (Poe, Pit 3).
The narrator speaks directly to the reader and opens the story by claiming that he is “dreadfully nervous” but not mad. He also maintains that he has sharpened senses due to his disease especially an abnormally acute hearing. He then tells a story to defend his plea of sanity by confessing to a murder of an old man - which basically contradicts and defeats his argument. He explains that his motivation to eradicate the old man’s existence is neither passion nor desire for the man’s possessions but rather the fear of the old man’s pale blue, vulture-like eye. He insists that he is not a madman for he carried out his scheme artfully like a criminal mastermind.