Tell-Tale Heart': A Literary Analysis
Out of the three short stories “Tell Tale Heart”, “Yellow Wallpaper”, and “Strawberry Spring”, “Tell Tale Heart” did the best at establishing the characters mental state. This is due to the fact that it is plain as day that the character is insane from the beginning; but he gets more and more insane as the story progresses.
“The disease had sharpened my senses”(Page 37). At this point in the story the character knows that he is believed to be insane but he is trying to defend. He does this by saying that instead of his senses being destroyed they were sharpened. He is trying to defend himself even though no one said that he was insane yet. This alone is a small give away that he is not in the right mind.
“I was never kinder to the old man than …show more content…
I thought my heart must burst”(Page 39). This shows that by the end of the story the character has grown more insane. He is hearing the beating of the old man's heart under the floorboards even though he is dead. He is hearing this because he is very nervous with the officers there, and he thinks the officers hear it too so he believes that they are mocking him. The beating gets louder and louder until the character finally freaks out and tells the officers where he hid the body.
The next story is “Yellow Wallpaper”. This story came pretty close in how well the author establishes the character mental state. The character grows more and more mad because of the wall paper in the room that she spends most of her time in.
“If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression- a slight hysterical tendency” (Page 437). This shows that there is something wrong with the mental state of the character, but the reader does not yet know to what extent the mental state is. As a reader this shows that her husband is a physician and will probably do anything to get his wife better. As part of getting his wife better he decide to rent out a old estate for a long period of
“The disease had sharpened my senses”(Page 37). At this point in the story the character knows that he is believed to be insane but he is trying to defend. He does this by saying that instead of his senses being destroyed they were sharpened. He is trying to defend himself even though no one said that he was insane yet. This alone is a small give away that he is not in the right mind.
“I was never kinder to the old man than …show more content…
I thought my heart must burst”(Page 39). This shows that by the end of the story the character has grown more insane. He is hearing the beating of the old man's heart under the floorboards even though he is dead. He is hearing this because he is very nervous with the officers there, and he thinks the officers hear it too so he believes that they are mocking him. The beating gets louder and louder until the character finally freaks out and tells the officers where he hid the body.
The next story is “Yellow Wallpaper”. This story came pretty close in how well the author establishes the character mental state. The character grows more and more mad because of the wall paper in the room that she spends most of her time in.
“If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression- a slight hysterical tendency” (Page 437). This shows that there is something wrong with the mental state of the character, but the reader does not yet know to what extent the mental state is. As a reader this shows that her husband is a physician and will probably do anything to get his wife better. As part of getting his wife better he decide to rent out a old estate for a long period of