edgar allan poe

             Katie-Marie Garcia American Romantics
             Edgar Allan Poe wrote many gothic stories where the narrators have most apparently gone mad. "The Tell-Tale Heart" "MS. Found in a bottle" and "A Descent into the Maelstrom" are some of these stories. In all these stories, the narrator is driven completely mad by something insignificant. Poe makes this point very clear in these stories. Even Poe's poems are filled with madness. "The Raven" is a great example of this.
             In "The Tell-Tale Heart" the narrator is a caretaker for an old man. He is driven insane by the one pale eye that the old man has. He plans to and kills the old man one night and buries him under the floor. When the police arrive the narrator believes that the old man's heart is still beating and rips the floor up and confesses his crime. The eye of the old man was "a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones..."(p.557) and this was the narrator's only reason for planning and killing the old man. Throughout the entire story the narrator is trying to convince the audience that he is in fact not mad, which makes him see even more insane.
             "Now at this point you fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded..."(p.555), The narrator tries to convince us and himself that he is in fact not mad. But the statement made earlier on, "Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me...for his gold I had no desire. I think that it was his eye!"(p.555) suggests that there is no sane motive for this crime. The narrator's consistent reminder of his sanity is out-weighted by his unhealthy obsession with the old man's "Evil Eye"(p.556).
             In "MS. Found in a bottle" the narrator is sailing with his crew when a storm destroys bu...

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