The True Demise of Myself
Lets take a journey through the mind of a man who is torn between his “id” and “superego.” In the short story “The Tell-Tale Heart,” by Edgar Alan Poe, a man cannot choose between right and wrong. Through the psychological theory I can prove how a man is torn between his “id,” “ego,” and “superego” and to proud to show his true identity of being a psychopath. The man is portrayed as the narrator and has taken on two identities one as a loving and caring man and the other is a psychopath. The “id” will take over his “ego” only to be taken over by his “superego” and eventually taken back over by his “ego.” Our journey starts with the young man, the narrator, telling us his story. The young man is a caretaker of an old man who is really old and has a diseased eye. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” the young man starts out by loving the old man very deeply. He takes care of his every need, until one day “ the old man’s eye fell upon him and his blood ran cold”(Poe 2). The young man then turned to his narcissistic ways and it changed the way he felt about the old man whom “he loved so dearly” (Poe 1). In “ Explanation of: ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ by Edgar Alan Poe,” which was rewritten by an unknown author, it explains how the narrator is a “paranoid schizophrenic”(pg. 1). The article explains how Edgar Alan Poe was obsessed with “death, madness, and troubled human relationships” (pg. 1). The narrator is definitely a man caught between normality and psychopath. Further more the young man goes on to “spy on the old man every night for a week” (Poe 3). In doing this, the young man is letting his “id” take over his thoughts and actions. Chua brings up a good point in “An overview of ‘The Tell-Tale Heart,” stating that the “old man and the young man are one in the same person” (Chua 2). This is a good point because the young man is “spying on the old man