Narcissism In The Tale Tell Heart

Superior Essays
In the words of Isabella Poretsis “All humans are alike and all humans are equal. It is just the perception of the eye that sees any different” (Goodreads Inc., 2014). This is the case in Edgar Allan Poe’s work “The Tale Tell Heart”. In Poe’s story the narrator has no hate for the old man that he is taking care of. In fact in the text the narrator admits that he loved the old man. He did not have any desire for the man’s money but showed that he despised the old man’s eye. In fact the old man’s eye is shown as the reason for the killing. So this shows that the narrator may have perceived the old man to possess an evil eye (Poe).
James Kirkland in his writing on Edgar Allan Poe’s work addresses why the old man’s “vulture eye” may have caused the narrator so much distress. In his writing he mentions about Edward Gifford who is “a contemporary expert of the Evil Eye”. Gifford has found in his research that in much folk writing
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Within the story the old man dies of suffocation. The article expresses that unlike strangulation, suffocation does not involve the narrator to have to see the old man’s face while the actual killing is in progress. The article shows this lack of confrontation during the killing is to “protect the narcissistic ego”. The killer only sees the bed on the victim (Wing-chi Ki). This is shown when the narrator say’s “ In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him” (Poe). Only once did the narrator refer to himself as doing the act. Through this he detaches himself in a way from the actual scene. After this he only refers to the old man and the sound of his beating heart. There for according to the article the narrator can view the killing as not himself but the bed. Because the narrator did not directly cause the old man suffering because the bed was the direct cause (Wing-chi

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