Tell-Tale Heart NarratorーMentally Unstable or a Calculated Killer? Edgar Allen Poe, one of the world’s most influential writers, often wrote stories and poems about people whose sanity could be questioned. One of his most famous short stories, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” is no different. The narrator of this story murders an old man, and then proceeds to admit to the murder. The question that must be asked is, “Is the narrator a calculated killer or is he just mentally unstable?”…
Using this psychoanalytic viewpoint of these stories, the reader can get an understanding of how the 2 main characters are mentally unstable and unfit. These two writers are known for portraying…
Sacrificial Drinking: Alcoholism in The Lost Weekend The Lost Weekend (Wilder, 1945) is a film that follows the story of alcoholic writer Don Birnam’s (played by Ray Milland) destructive weekend. The film follows the popular film-noir style of its time to bring to light all the darkness associated with alcoholism. This disease leads its victims to make sacrifices that are catastrophic to the individual and those around them.…
The lack of background beyond the flat dark surface draws the viewer forward and directs all of the attention to the man. This intent to a wholehearted focus on the sole figure has been interpreted by Crow to “…display a sympathetic objectivity which is congruent with…” the new approach towards psychiatry lead by the French . There is further consideration that this held a personal significance for Géricault and the position of social…
There seems to be no greater fascination among people than that of the insane. As if it’s ingrained in every person at birth, we all just can’t get enough of a crazy person. I suppose that’s why people still watch horrible reality television, and how Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest manages to keep a reader glued to the pages like hyperfixation throughout the book. From the very first moment that they walk the halls of the Big Nurse’s ward, readers are gripped with an eerie and exciting feeling of offness, as if the rooms themselves echo the misalignment of the minds of the patients within. However, we swiftly learn that this foreboding atmosphere does not come from the hospital’s clients, but instead emanates from Nurse Ratched herself, overseer…
When observing the text through a critical theory lens it is apparent the psychoanalytic literary theory is applicable. The psychoanalytic literary theory seeks to explore the character’s…
In The Moral Function of Distortion in Southern Grotesque the author, Delma Presley, explains how different authors express their grotesque works. By using different analogies, Presley explains each author which makes it more intelligible to the reader. “Flannery O’ Connor’s point is that grotesque literature exists because writers are faced with the reality that they live in an age whose distortions function as indicators of how far man has drifted from his true image as a creature of God…” (Presley 39). Authors such as O’ Connor, Faulkner, and Sweat wanted to show the truth about the South with a twist.…
Individuals are frequently told from a young age to understand somebody rather than judging them based on their appearance. Yet in both Frankenstein and Othello characters place a large emphasis on someone's exterior. The theme of appearance versus reality is prevalent in both William Shakespeare's Othello and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Characters in both pieces of literature lack to further understand certain peoples' personalities. The over analysis of appearance done by individuals in both texts negatively impacts the lives of Othello and the creature from Frankenstein.…
“Freud and gothic literatures are like cousins, both respond to the problems of selfhood and identity, sexuality and pleasure, fear and anxiety, in the nineteenth and twentieth century.” Freud argued that humans are not unified wholes, but internally ruptured and alienated from nature and himself (Martin 41). “The goal of the Freudian analyst, like that of Victor Frankenstein, is to re-member the dismembered parts of our fragmented selves, to cure us by making us whole. To do so he must achieve a delicate balance of scientific objectivity and sympathetic identification, remaining detached from the patient, even as he tries to understand his (or usually her) mind. (Martin 41)…
The narrator of “The Tell-tale Heart” can be seen as a very different individual. Some even say that the narrator is insane from the beginning of the story. Being insane comes with a lot of unique characteristics, and the narrator shows many of these characteristics throughout the story. Insane is defined as “afflicted with or characteristic of mental derangement.” This paper will seek to validate to assumption that the narrator is in fact, insane.…
Love 's Executioner and Creatures of a Day, by Dr. Irvin D. Yalom, are two riveting and insightful compilations of Dr. Yaloms ' life work as a Psychotherapist. Both are composed of various tales that shed some light on some of humanities greatest struggles, and Yaloms ' journey to guide his patients through the darkest times in their lives. Through these two writings, Dr. Yalom, is able to depict not just the development of his characters, but reveal his own growth and development as a psychotherapist and as a human being through his interactions, some almost three decades apart. The varying structures of these two books, hint at some transition in his thought and growth as the years progress. The different roles that he takes on in his sessions and his manner of interacting with his patients, his style and his ability to empathize, all give us a marvelous image of Yaloms own journey; and even though the stories are about his patients, they are invariably tales of himself.…
In the article “Aesthetic of Astonishment: Early Film and the (In)Credulous Spectator”, Tom Gunning argues that the first people who watched Lumiere’s Arrival of a Train at the Station were not in shock because they believed that the train was real, they were astonished by the illusion they witnessed before them on the screen. In contrary to the myth that people feared that they were going to be killed by a train, Gunning stresses that the Audiences’ astonishment was derived “from a magical metamorphosis”(Gunning, 119). This metamorphosis is essentially cinema itself and the illusions it produces on screen. Gunning calls cinema a “magic theatre”(Gunning,117) where filmmakers strived to make the impossible, appear believable through visual representations.…
Sigmund Fred’s theories and beliefs about psychology are the fundamental elements of Psychoanalytic Criticism. One focus of the psychoanalytical approach to literature is "... the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware..." (Tyson 14-15). Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Birthmark”, represents such motivational desires and fears through its main character Aylmer, who develops a deadly relationship with his wife Georgianna and her existing birthmark.…
3.3 Piano Figuration 3.3.1 Use of Percussive Figuration Prokofiev first used percussive figuration in Sarcasms Op. 17 and Toccata Op. 11 written in the same year. At the beginning of Sarcasms, the Tempestoso is depicted by the percussive introduction. The harsh percussive sound in the interval of the augmented fourth is not only reinforced by ff, but also projects an intense emotion.…
Master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960’s best seller Psycho is a story of a young employer who stole a hefty amount of money and then running away in order to be with the man she loves, gets lost and decides to stay at a motel for the night, shortly regretting what she’s done. This film, featuring Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates and Janet Leigh as Marion Crane, breaks cinematic history. With Hitchcock’s great eye for detail, he engrosses audiences in this ground breaking psychological thriller/horror film to the very end. Hitchcock makes use of motifs and mise-en-scene to explore the key themes and ideas such as duality, voyeurism and isolation, to show how the audience is positioned to see the true nature of the carefully constructed…