Tell Tale Crazy
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Tell Tale Crazy
One or more elements of character must be present to make the claim that one is an unreliable narrator. "In a story told by an unreliable narrator, the point of view is that of a person who, we perceive, is deceptive, self-deceptive, deluded, or deranged." (Kennedy, 26) Based on the textbook definition, the narrator in Edgar Allen Poe's "A Tell Tale Heart" is an unreliable narrator. Poe reveals at the beginning of this story that the narrator is unreliable, which allows the audience to consider the source when relating to the claims made by the narrator. "True! nervous very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but why will you say that I am mad?" (Poe, 36) This question serves as an effective preamble to a story riddled with deranged thoughts, deluded behavior, and deception.
The narrator's self-deception is communicated throughout the story in his repeated denials of madness and his attempts to identify himself as a wise and courageous man. It is apparent in the opening paragraph that the narrator is deranged when he claims to hear "all things in the heaven and in the earth" and "many things in hell." (36) He credits his dementia to "over-acuteness of the sense," (37) which is also an early indicator that he is either deceiving himself or attempting to deceive the audience...