"True! Nervous -- very, very nervous I had been and am! But why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses -- not destroyed them.
Above all was the sense of hearing. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in the underworld. How, then, am I mad? Observe how healthily -- how calmly I can tell you the whole story
If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise steps I took for hiding the body. I worked quickly, but in silence. First of all, I took apart the body. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs." The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe
In the spirit of Halloween, I decided to read The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe. (If you watch Criminal Minds and are in love with Matthew Gray Gubler like I am, then I suggest you google his reading of the poem/story. It's amazing!) Anyway, as I was reading the work, I decided to pick out the points that I found interesting. Interesting enough, the passages I found reminded me of chapter 7 in Grendel, the speaker is talking about how he is not mad. He brings up the question of if he is crazy or not. While Grendel, accuses himself of being crazy and points out that he is. The speaker of this work contrasts Grendel by pointing out that he is not crazy. Usually the word disease has a negative connotation. It leaves people weak and destroyed. But instead, the disease gifted him. The disease heightened his senses and made him a better man. It seems that the disease has given him a God like power. He is able to hear everything on Heaven and on Earth. He now has an omniscient presence. This new power does not make him mad however. He is able to stay calm even though he can sense every little thing going on around him. Nothing phases him because he is now God.
The second part of the work I selected was towards the end. He is still calming that he is not mad and that he is a rational human being. He is God and he can control the life and death of all people. He took specific steps to hide the body. It almost sounds as if he thinks himself as a genius because he hide the body so well. He worked "quickly but in silence." This ties back into the omniscient presence. God does not physically perform his deeds. He works silently like a ghost. The fact that he cuts up the old man's body reminds of fragmentation. He thinks he is organized and put together by taking the time to cut up the body. I think it is funny that he is trying to convince the reader that his mind is whole and not fragmented. In order to seem sane and whole, he cuts up the body which I think is a little ironic. He cuts off the head the arms and the legs. These parts are needed together to make the body seem whole. Without the limbs, the body is no longer pieced together how it is supposed to be naturally. He is taking on the role of God and performing an unnatural act. He is taking control of a situation when is mind is spinning out of control. I think it is interesting that he is earnestly trying to convince the reader that he is not crazy. He's claiming that he is not crazy because he did a good job and murdering the man and hiding the body. This is the logic of a mad man. A normal person would not be thinking of a murder as a natural and organized act. He could be trying to convince himself more than the reader that he is not crazy. He's trying to convince himself that what he did was a good thing. He is justifying the fact that he killed a man that never harmed him. The old man never harmed him, said a bad word about him, NOTHING. Yet he killed him. What a twisted work for a twisted Halloween. Happy Halloween everyone!
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