Deception and Murder The Theme of Madness in Edgar Allan Poes The Cask of Amontillado 1846 and The TellTale Heart 1843
19th century American literature developed with the emergence of anew genre in prose writing, the horror and mystery genre. Edgar Allan Poe,well-known American poet and writer, was recognized for his acclaim as thecreator of stories that center on detectives and mysteries, as well asaccounts of individuals who fall into insanity. This latter genre, thehorror of insanity, is perhaps what Poe is well-known for, having beenlabeled as a mentally-ill man himself, characterized by his "sensitivepersonality and hereditary tendency to neurosis" (Edgar Allan Poe Reader, Indeed, Poe's "terrible sense of horror" is effectively manifested inhis literary works, of which the short stories The Tell-Tale Heart (1843)and The Cask of Amontillado (1846) are known for. These short storiesnarrate the life of individuals driven to insanity, who commit mercilessacts of murder in order to 'cover up' and deny the unacceptable deeds thattheir mental instability has brought to their lives. Furthermore, thestories mirror and reflect what is going on in the mind of an insane man,as Poe narrates in the first-person, giving the stories the atmosphere that
Through the madman's narration of events prior to themurder of the old man, we as readers witness his decline towards insanity,and as each day pass by, we encounter how the calculating and precise mindof the madman tried to both embrace and detest the feeling of insanity, or,as the madman calls it, the "over-acuteness of the senses. Or, it may also be the case that Montresor'smental state has helped create the character's need for vengeance. Another dimension that manifests duality in Tell-Tale is the madmanhimself. The madman in Tell-Tale was also preoccupied in maintaining orderdespite his chaotic state of mind as he becomes more agitated each day overthe old man's Evil Eye and his premeditated plan to kill it (Evil Eye),killing the old man in the process. As the Voices of the characters helped solidify their personalitiesin the stories, the theme of madness is then supported by events andactions caused by the characters in the story. This statementillustrates the fact that while Montresor revels at the thought of finallyachieving revenge against Fortunato, there is also a part of him whichsuffers, as he further declined towards insanity. There is one main difference between the voicesof Cask and Tell-Tale, however: while the former adopts a controlled andcultured tone in expressing his anxiety and anger, the narrator of Tell-Tale overtly expresses his excitement, even confessing that he is"nervous": "TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am;but why WILL you say that I am mad'" The second part of the statement, where the madman asks, "but whyWILL you say that I am mad'" is a question that begs the readers to notconfuse him as an insane individual. SinceMontresor, the character, is not yet named, readers will then associate theVoice in the story as that of Poe's, thereby establishing the linkagebetween the author's and character's similarity-that is, their insanity. However, the madman will later succumb to insanity,motivated more by his hate rather than love for the old man. Montresor's manner of killing Fortunato is one form of creating orderout of chaos: Fortunato's burial in the underground wine cellar concealsthe act of murder committed by Montresor. It is evident that while the old man is the madman'sobject of love, one part of the old man is his object of hate-the old man'seye, the "pale blue eye with a film over it," which he calls the "EvilEye. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt assuch to him who has done the wrong. In sum, the theme of madness is best illustrated by the acts ofconcealment and murder committed by Montresor and the unnamed madman.
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