Note:
This is a safe space for my responses to short stories. There are aspects that are too blunt. Comment which ones and why, maybe I will edit them out! (Or maybe I won't!)
- A. I. {am} probable
The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe
Author's Note: This is my response/analysis to "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe. It took a few pieces, with help from Mr. Johnson to discover what I really wanted to talk about which is somewhere along the lines of what contained guilt can lead a person to do... I was trying to use strong vocabulary (as this tends to be one of my weaknesses), as well as include a few semantic/ syntactical devices in a more natural way, as I have the tendency to try and force them in. Let me know what you think.
People feel safest when constantly hearing noise; sound gives us comfort, sound gives us warmth, and sound gives us breath. When the silence comes, normally during the night, things become eerie. The time when our minds go a little crazy, when it is dark, we can’t really see things, so we imagine them. We can’t really hear things, so we imagine them, and we can’t really comprehend things. Due to such little amount of noise, the least comfortable time is night. As far as hearing things, however, it can sometimes apply during the day. When you are thinking about one thing so frequently, you can sometimes faintly hear it, even when it’s not there. One thing that would lead a person to hearing something that is not there is guilt. Guilt is a deadly parasite – it kills people from the inside.
The man in “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a victim of this parasite. He is so aware of what he has done, his hearing has been so heightened, that he begins to make up things in his head, just to satisfy his insanity, to satisfy his thirst for something exotic to happen. “And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror.” He literally believes that he can hear the heartbeat of the man, even after death. A heightened awareness present due to guilt only leads to bad things; in this character’s case it is even a step worse than paranoia: schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a mental disease that causes the bearer to completely imagine things.
Even from the beginning of the story, the main character, although constantly claiming otherwise, has become mad; he has gone off the deep end a little; he has surrendered to this thought that the landlord’s eye is evil. "He had the eye of a vulture – a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold...” There are people everywhere with cataracts in their eyes, or coloboma (cat) eyes; it is an entirely human reaction to be a bit spooked, and maybe even avoid the person for a while. This character however, brings himself to believe that this man – who has done him no wrong – has an eye that is reason enough for murder. He has no reason to kill this man, he acts with no reasonable motive. Thus he leads himself into the guilt he receives, it is not just some fluke situation. Guilt is deadly, but predictable. Oftentimes we know very well the amount of guilt our actions will leave us with.
Guilt is a human feeling. Although most people have not been involved in murder, all people will feel guilt sometime in their lives. We are in a world full of rules, in society, religion, and just about everything else. This story, for example, is set in the Victorian Era. This era was known for strict behavioral beliefs, and also Christianity. This man, when deciding to take the old man’s life, fully understands that his is breaking the sixth commandment according to Moses, as well as breaking the morals of his society. However, Christianity has a very powerful theme: forgiveness. The only way to get rid of guilt is by forgiveness.
Forgiveness is easier to give to someone, than to give yourself. In order to get rid of guilt entirely, you need to forgive yourself.Guilt grows steadily, and without forgiving yourself, it just continues to build up inside. We are our own worst critics, because we know of all of our own mistakes, all of our reasons to be guilt. Without forgiveness, the guilt grows more. This character’s actions become a manifestation of what happens when the guilt becomes unmanageable. He refuses to accept what he has done, and forgive himself. Sure, it would normally take more time to forgive oneself. Under these circumstances, however, when the police show up right after his evil deed, there are only two choices that he has: to forgive himself, or let the guilt takeover, and give in.
After the death of the old man, the murderer begins to feel his self-inflicted guilt. He has the knowledge that the police officers do not, of the man directly beneath his feet. The guilt he is feeling for killing the man is so powerful, so overwhelming, that his schizophrenia reveals itself as he begins to hear the man’s heartbeat. The imagined sound is driven by his guilt directly. As the sun begins to rise, he hears the heartbeat louder and louder. The sun is a symbol of knowledge, revealed while the man begins to worry that the officers can hear the heartbeat too. He is driven into confessing to the murder, revealing the man beneath him; he finally bursts out the guilt, admitting to what he’d done. Guilt leads us into sick measures. Like a parasite, unless eliminated from the body, the outcomes are deadly.
People feel safest when constantly hearing noise; sound gives us comfort, sound gives us warmth, and sound gives us breath. When the silence comes, normally during the night, things become eerie. The time when our minds go a little crazy, when it is dark, we can’t really see things, so we imagine them. We can’t really hear things, so we imagine them, and we can’t really comprehend things. Due to such little amount of noise, the least comfortable time is night. As far as hearing things, however, it can sometimes apply during the day. When you are thinking about one thing so frequently, you can sometimes faintly hear it, even when it’s not there. One thing that would lead a person to hearing something that is not there is guilt. Guilt is a deadly parasite – it kills people from the inside.
The man in “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a victim of this parasite. He is so aware of what he has done, his hearing has been so heightened, that he begins to make up things in his head, just to satisfy his insanity, to satisfy his thirst for something exotic to happen. “And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror.” He literally believes that he can hear the heartbeat of the man, even after death. A heightened awareness present due to guilt only leads to bad things; in this character’s case it is even a step worse than paranoia: schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a mental disease that causes the bearer to completely imagine things.
Even from the beginning of the story, the main character, although constantly claiming otherwise, has become mad; he has gone off the deep end a little; he has surrendered to this thought that the landlord’s eye is evil. "He had the eye of a vulture – a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold...” There are people everywhere with cataracts in their eyes, or coloboma (cat) eyes; it is an entirely human reaction to be a bit spooked, and maybe even avoid the person for a while. This character however, brings himself to believe that this man – who has done him no wrong – has an eye that is reason enough for murder. He has no reason to kill this man, he acts with no reasonable motive. Thus he leads himself into the guilt he receives, it is not just some fluke situation. Guilt is deadly, but predictable. Oftentimes we know very well the amount of guilt our actions will leave us with.
Guilt is a human feeling. Although most people have not been involved in murder, all people will feel guilt sometime in their lives. We are in a world full of rules, in society, religion, and just about everything else. This story, for example, is set in the Victorian Era. This era was known for strict behavioral beliefs, and also Christianity. This man, when deciding to take the old man’s life, fully understands that his is breaking the sixth commandment according to Moses, as well as breaking the morals of his society. However, Christianity has a very powerful theme: forgiveness. The only way to get rid of guilt is by forgiveness.
Forgiveness is easier to give to someone, than to give yourself. In order to get rid of guilt entirely, you need to forgive yourself.Guilt grows steadily, and without forgiving yourself, it just continues to build up inside. We are our own worst critics, because we know of all of our own mistakes, all of our reasons to be guilt. Without forgiveness, the guilt grows more. This character’s actions become a manifestation of what happens when the guilt becomes unmanageable. He refuses to accept what he has done, and forgive himself. Sure, it would normally take more time to forgive oneself. Under these circumstances, however, when the police show up right after his evil deed, there are only two choices that he has: to forgive himself, or let the guilt takeover, and give in.
After the death of the old man, the murderer begins to feel his self-inflicted guilt. He has the knowledge that the police officers do not, of the man directly beneath his feet. The guilt he is feeling for killing the man is so powerful, so overwhelming, that his schizophrenia reveals itself as he begins to hear the man’s heartbeat. The imagined sound is driven by his guilt directly. As the sun begins to rise, he hears the heartbeat louder and louder. The sun is a symbol of knowledge, revealed while the man begins to worry that the officers can hear the heartbeat too. He is driven into confessing to the murder, revealing the man beneath him; he finally bursts out the guilt, admitting to what he’d done. Guilt leads us into sick measures. Like a parasite, unless eliminated from the body, the outcomes are deadly.
"After the Dance" by Leo Tolstoy
Author's note: This is the first "official" piece I have done this year, and I am just trying to get back into the swing of things, not really trying hard to add special vocabulary, or devices. This is an analysis of the short story "After the Dance" by Leo Tolstoy. It was written in 1903, and is a story I had to read for AcaDec, and create a PowerPoint telling all about the story, and blah blah blah... I didn't however have to write a response to the story, and there were a few things about it that got me thinking, so I decided to write this. I begin and end with a quote from the story, attempting a different style of introduction and conclusion than I have done in the past. Also, if you wish to read the story, you can do so here.
"So my love came to naught. Yes; such chances arise, and they alter and direct a whole man's life.” Ending in despair, the man whose sweep-you-off-your-feet romance story, is brought quickly to the end. His whole love life, what could have been everything, is all ended by his incapability to un-see the torture of man, is ended by never being able to view the woman he loves as more than the offspring of a man who found good reason in whipping and beating a man nearly to death. Although it was rough, and a hard task, he was able to put Varinka, the only woman he ever loved, out of his mind. The future he wished to have, was destroyed by a man he met once. Our actions have consequences; although this is overused and perpetually repeated to us over, and over, and over again, it is more real, and more serious than is known. The colonel, who was the father of Varinka, without knowing it caused Ivan’s life to become displeasing, simply by doing what he thought was right, and what was the common practice during the time period.
Even something as simple as a word can destroy someone’s life; someone’s whole future put to an end, by something as unremarkable as four letters, or even three. With the blink of an eye, someone becomes a shut-in, or develops phobias, all because of the actions of someone else. This should never be the case. Nothing that people say or do should ever have the right to destroy our happiness, and never should be able to take us down. Yet, it always seems to happen, it always works. Ivan’s life was destroyed by manslaughter, an occurrence that should never exist, it never should have happened, and yet it did. The Colonel’s actions had a direct affect not only on the man he was beating to death, but also an innocent bystander, a man not guilty of the crime that the Tartar had committed, a man not deserving of the punishment of watching a man be slaughtered. Ivan’s downfall of love for Varinka because of her father’s actions is only a small example of the hefty consequences that come with such thoughtless actions.
Although it seems over-sensitive, and unreal, something as small as a facial expression can make or break someone’s day. Many times I have had a wonderful day, all because of someone smiling at me, or saying something nice. It is really small, just having some self-awareness, a sense of knowledge of what affect actions have on someone’s day, or even life. To think that the power is in an individual’s hands to destroy a person’s life is astonishing. It is so unbelievable, that a simple action by one man caused Ivan to not be able to be with the one woman he truly loved. Ivan had a fishy feeling about what he saw that morning, but could never totally determine the reason for the Colonel’s actions, and thus could never think of his love Varinka the same way, and thus couldn’t be with her anymore.
“-And you say that a man cannot, of himself, understand what is good and evil; that it is all environment, that the environment swamps the man. But I believe it is all chance. Take my own case…”
"So my love came to naught. Yes; such chances arise, and they alter and direct a whole man's life.” Ending in despair, the man whose sweep-you-off-your-feet romance story, is brought quickly to the end. His whole love life, what could have been everything, is all ended by his incapability to un-see the torture of man, is ended by never being able to view the woman he loves as more than the offspring of a man who found good reason in whipping and beating a man nearly to death. Although it was rough, and a hard task, he was able to put Varinka, the only woman he ever loved, out of his mind. The future he wished to have, was destroyed by a man he met once. Our actions have consequences; although this is overused and perpetually repeated to us over, and over, and over again, it is more real, and more serious than is known. The colonel, who was the father of Varinka, without knowing it caused Ivan’s life to become displeasing, simply by doing what he thought was right, and what was the common practice during the time period.
Even something as simple as a word can destroy someone’s life; someone’s whole future put to an end, by something as unremarkable as four letters, or even three. With the blink of an eye, someone becomes a shut-in, or develops phobias, all because of the actions of someone else. This should never be the case. Nothing that people say or do should ever have the right to destroy our happiness, and never should be able to take us down. Yet, it always seems to happen, it always works. Ivan’s life was destroyed by manslaughter, an occurrence that should never exist, it never should have happened, and yet it did. The Colonel’s actions had a direct affect not only on the man he was beating to death, but also an innocent bystander, a man not guilty of the crime that the Tartar had committed, a man not deserving of the punishment of watching a man be slaughtered. Ivan’s downfall of love for Varinka because of her father’s actions is only a small example of the hefty consequences that come with such thoughtless actions.
Although it seems over-sensitive, and unreal, something as small as a facial expression can make or break someone’s day. Many times I have had a wonderful day, all because of someone smiling at me, or saying something nice. It is really small, just having some self-awareness, a sense of knowledge of what affect actions have on someone’s day, or even life. To think that the power is in an individual’s hands to destroy a person’s life is astonishing. It is so unbelievable, that a simple action by one man caused Ivan to not be able to be with the one woman he truly loved. Ivan had a fishy feeling about what he saw that morning, but could never totally determine the reason for the Colonel’s actions, and thus could never think of his love Varinka the same way, and thus couldn’t be with her anymore.
“-And you say that a man cannot, of himself, understand what is good and evil; that it is all environment, that the environment swamps the man. But I believe it is all chance. Take my own case…”
This feels like an exercise in writing that eventually excavates something you want to address, and that happens in the last paragraph. When that happens, don't be afraid to abandon the initial idea of where you were going to go with the writing, and instead, let yourself explore the real issue at hand. Here it seems to be the way in which we offer up power to others to influence us.
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