The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe!
A perfect hair-raising
Halloween-time experience!
Head without a heart, is monstrous,
Head with a heart in
place, works wonders!
Don’t we
stumble upon folks, who appear standoffish and selfish, and others overtly
emotional? It is infrequent to encounter the ones with a correct amalgamation
of both head and heart. Life turns into a beautiful song, only when both the
head and the heart work in tandem!
For me, “The Tell-Tale
Heart”, is a macabre story, eliciting the above theme of the importance of the
intertwinement and inexplicability of head and heart!
It is a
commentary on rationality of a human with a head but no heart, juxtaposing the
ramifications of presence and absence of heart! It is a story about psychological
issues, in a person with a diseased mind!
The unnamed narrator,
throughout the story keeps proclaiming that he isn’t mad, but in actuality his
mind is diseased. This story, is a study on human psychology (not alone about a
madman, but a self-note for all those, who operate only with head, keeping the
heart aside in a locker!)
The nameless narrator
starts-off by convincing the readers that he isn’t mad. He lives along with an
old man (I assume a chaperone). Definitely they don’t share a kinship,
the narrator likes the old man, but just his eye vexes him all the time! He refers
to it as – a vulture eye (I presumed, that as the man is old, may be one of
his eyes would have developed an abnormality). He plans to kill the old
man, and get rid of the irritation! He sneaks into his room every day for a
week, diligently! Watches over him
sleeping, but can’t close the deed, as the problematic eye is closed. Finally,
the heavens fall on the 8th night, when he makes a noise and sees
the eye in the lantern light. The old man gets scared to death, the narrator hears
the old man’s heartbeat, as he is petrified! The pounding heart beat serves as the final stroke,
and he attacks him by smothering him, dismembers and conceals the body in the floorboards!
Eye is an object of obsession for his diseased mind. He is merciless, and
fixated on his goal alone!
He is a man
of brains, street-smart, but without a heart!
He plans the
murder with diligence, persistence and obsession. He sneaks into the bedroom of
the old man for straight 7 continuous nights. His obsessive-compulsive disorder
for the minutest details is proven, by the way he cites the details, impeccably!
Throughout the story, he
is busy proving that he isn’t insane.
The more he
tries to convince, the more he convinces the readers, that he is mentally
unstable! As we say, guilty until proved innocent, he stays busy proving his
innocence throughout!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The second-half
of the story, is what I enjoyed the most, when the policemen arrive at the
crime scene!
Narrator stays calm and composed,
and isn’t unnerved encountering them.
Suddenly he starts
hearing the heart, louder and louder, the clamour increases, he marches in the
room petrified. Assuming the policemen can hear the beats, but are pretending
not to, just to make a mockery of him!
“I foamed—I
raved—I swore!”
“Almighty
God!—no, no! They heard!—they suspected!—they knew!—they were making a mockery
of my horror!”
Anything was tolerable to
him but their derision.
Finally, he decides to
surrender-
“Villains!” I
shrieked, “dissemble no more! I admit the deed!—tear up the planks!—here,
here!—it is the beating of his hideous heart!”
############################
Not because of the gore
and blood or spookiness, but because of the mere psychological factor/learning,
a mindful 4.5-stars, ofcourse along with a beating heart! 😊
Dropped 0.5 stars, as I wanted to listen to the old-man commentary (maybe a sentence or so), to know his state-of-mind!
The absence
of heart in a human with a diseased mind, became the reason for his own
conviction! It was ironical, how he refers the policemen as villains in the
closing line, when he himself is a criminal!
Attainment of
goals with sheer head, led to total apocalypse and out-and-out chaos! Heart
directs the mind for a more fruitful outcome. It clearly declares the ramifications
of an absent heart in a ruthless man. The “heart-beat” reveals not only his
crime, and convicts him, but it also reveals the need for a cogent mind.
For a
rational mind, heart is an indispensable asset!
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