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The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
Julissa Lizzette Garza
Derec Moore
ENGL 1302
April 26, 2020
The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mental illness is a health condition that affects a person’s thinking, emotion, and behavior. This results in individuals making haste and unthought-of judgments which put others or the individual at risk. In the Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar Allan Poe uses allegory, symbolism, and imagery of an unnamed narrator to defuse the actions and explanations of mental illness. According to the World Health Organization (27), statistics show that almost ten percent of the human population has mental issues, therefore making mental health a matter of interest that should be addressed. The anonymous narrator remains an unreliable narrator. The narrator is irrational and mentally unstable. In the Tell Tale Heart we can see, “I did for seven long nights—every night just at midnight.” (Poe) The narrator is not logical, invading the old man’s room as he sleeps. The narrator starts by taking care of an older man with an evil eye. Later, decides to kill the older man, and in the end, the narrator’s guilt became unbearable, leading him to surrender to the officers.
In the Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar Allan Poe uses the allegory of an unnamed narrator to defuse the actions and explanations of mental illness. Poe uses inconsistent statements throughout the story, which points to vagueness and questions the story’s credibility. Such inconsistencies point to the narrator’s struggle with the evil that is bedridden in his character and the fears that the narrator is experiencing. For instance, the narrator endeavors to explain what happened with the body of the older man, the narrator says that there was no stain of anything, and the body was carefully placed in the underneath of the floor. The narrator assumes that the body of the older man is undetectable. The three police officers would easily detect the smell of a dead body at the crime scene. The narrator also lost control of himself when he heard steadily increasing noises. He became paranoid and began to claim to have heard, “groan of mortal terror… that arises from the bottom of the soul.” There is no way one can listen to death since death cannot speak. The above examples can show inconsistencies of the allegorically used to show the mental state of the narrator. The killing of the older man does not have a clear justification. The narrator has no reason but imaginary illusions, which only people with mental illness experience. As previously mentioned above from the illustrations, we can conclude that the narrator would have Psychosis. Another example proving this Poe mentions “but the noise steadily increased.” (Poe) The speaker was under the assumption the heartbeat of the older man could be heard aloud. People are suffering from Psychosis experience, possessiveness, overestimation, over-confidence, hallucination, and delusions, according to Garret (Garret 192).
In the Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar Allan Poe uses the symbolism of an unnamed narrator to defuse the actions and explanations of mental illness. The story uses body parts and other items to symbolize the state of the narrator. “First of all I dismembered the corpse.” (Poe) The speaker killed the older man because of the evil eye. Sometimes, these symbols represent the narrator rather than the older man. The eye of the old man is unique; the narrator refers to it as a “vulture eye.” The vulture is known to feed on the carcass, dead flesh. The evil eye can represent a feel of being watched and can come off as preying and death. This explains what happens in the story, the narrator preys on the older man, and the older man is dead. The eye symbolism reveals the behavioral nature of the narrator, which is quite different from the average person. The eye begins to agitate the narrator, and the narrator starts to compartmentalize how he wants to deal with the situation. The narrator sees the eye as evil. What perplexes the reader is why the narrator killed the older man instead of the eye. This can possibly explain the mental state of the narrator; he took the life of the older man instead of the eye. The heart symbolizes conscience and emotions. As mentioned before, Poe states “but the noise steadily increased” to prove the speaker was going insane because of the sound of the heartbeat. The narrator believes that the older man’s heart is beating loudly; it can be it was his heart beating, making him confess the murder. The narrator’s spirit was symbolically haunting him to acknowledge the killing so that the older man’s heart can rest in peace. The narrator begins to hallucinate ringing bell, it rings louder and even louder. The guilt that the narrator is feeling symbolically ties to the torture of his soul. Symbolism in the text helps to expose the narrator’s behavior and his heinous act of murder.
The imagery of the Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe reveals the suffering of the narrator according to his revelations in the story. The way the narrator describes these images show the instability of his mental cognizant. For instance, the narrator says, “the disease had sharpened his senses…not destroyed… not dulled them.” The narrator believes that his sensory have been made sharper, but as we know, diseases weaken the sensory system. This imagery helps to unravel the mental health of the narrator. The narrator also speaks of how he undid the lantern each night cautiously. “Cautiously…Oh, so cautiously…Cautiously for the hinges creaked…he undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye.” (Poe) The narrator’s sentiment, “hinges creaked,” is auditory imagery. The narrator describes the sound and images with undiluted exactness; it is in his interest that the finer details is a question to ponder on.
In most cases, it is people with a given interest or with health issues that get concerned about the finer details. (Kidd et al. 109) In this case, the narrator’s interest in the finer details explains more than what meets the eye, given his behavior in question. The narrator quickly notes the thin ray of light across the darkroom. The narrator also describes the old man’s residence as “black as pitch with thick darkness.” This imagery helps the reader to create mental images of what exactly the room looked like. The images also reveal the darkness in the thoughts of the narrator and possibly explain why he took the step to kill the older man, according to (Kidd et al. 110).
In the Tell-Tale Heart, the narrator wrestles with insanity driving him or her to commit heinous crimes. The narrator tries to normalize his actions to hide his mental illness. “First of all, I dismembered the corpse.” (Poe) Looking at the older man’s abnormal eye caused the speaker to take death upon his or her own hands. They are deciding to kill an older adult. In conclusion, Edgar Allan Poe builds the thrill and tension causing the narrator to lose his or her mind. The mental health of the narrators had the readers in question. Had the narrator’s mental stability not been in question it would have not drive the narrator to take death into his own hands. Due to the mental instability of the narrator hearing sounds, he or she would have not surrendered to the officers as Brittan (54) notes that the three stylistic devices; imagery, symbolism, and allegory, were used effectively by the writer, Poe to unveil the mental issues that affected the narrator. The tools expose the narrator’s thinking and his evil plans. The writer also uses stylistic device to get to the readers to understand the mental state of the people who have a mental illness.
Works Cited
Brittan, Simon. Poetry, Symbol, and Allegory: Interpreting metaphorical language from Plato to the present. University of Virginia Press, 2003.
Gadhvi, Mahesh. “Physiology, Sensory System.” StatPearls [Internet]., U.S. National Library of Medicine, 5 Oct. 2019, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK547656/.
Garety, Phillip A., et al. “A cognitive model of the positive symptoms of psychosis.” Psychological medicine 31.2 (2001): 189-195.
Kidd, Judith, and Linney Wix. “Images of the heart: Archetypal imagery in therapeutic artwork.” Art Therapy 13.2 (1996): 108-113.
“Learn About Mental Health – Mental Health – CDC.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 26 Jan. 2018, www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/learn/index.htm.
World Health Organization. Department of Mental Health, et al. Mental health atlas 2005. World Health Organization, 2005.
Using similar theory, framework, research question but to Federal Senior Executive Service (SES) and African American Men an
Using similar theory, framework, research question but to: Federal Senior Executive Service (SES) and African American Men and women.
[Insert Name]
[Institutional Affiliation]
Introduction
The United States has aspired to be the land where opportunities are plenty and a place where other people are able to come with the hopes of better life and actually get it. It has aspired to provide equality in opportunity such that every child in the land can envision working their way to the pinnacle in the society. These aspects have made the US a melting pot thus attracting the best of brains, skills and experience from all over the world. Therefore, the resulting polyglot society is a great asset to the country since the diverse parts of the country create a better productive force that is far better than any of its parts. As such, it is imperative that as the nation becomes more diverse, the government also reflects the diversity. The Center for American Progress projects that within the 21 century, the nation will have no obvious racial majority (Kohli et al., 2011). According to the US Census Bureau projections, the entire population of the nation will encompass about 54% people of color by the year 2050 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2011).
Background of SES
Senior Executive Service (SES) was established in 1979 as a position classification akin to ranking system used in the US Armed Forces save for the fact that it is mainly concerned with position classification for the civil service. The origin of diversity demographics sprouts from the fact that the US has for long time attracted people of diverse racial origin and ethnicity since it is attached to the image of a land of equal opportunities and better life. This brand image has led to a collection of diverse pool of social resources in the capital hence bringing diverse cultural capital that is not only reflected in the entire population or demographic landscape but should also be mirrored in the various quarters where these social capital and capital are needed and applied.
Problem: Scarce African American men and women SES
Based on Congress findings of 2009, minorities comprised 22.5 per cent of the persons serving at the GS- 15 and GS- 14 ranks and 15.8 per cent of the SES in 2007. In addition, even though the number of SES members went up from 6,110 in the year 2000 to 6,555 in the year 2007, the proportion of African-American men in the SES reduced during the same period by point five percentage from 5.5% down to 5.0%. The same findings indicated that African-American employees represented about 6.1 per cent of employees at the Senior Pay levels alongside 17.8% of the permanent workforce in the Federal government in comparison to about 10.1% African-American employees in the civilian workforce in the 2007 fiscal year. From the data availed by the US Office of Personnel Management for the period lasting 2012 fiscal year, out of the 8,004 total SES members, the number of African men and women in SES were 829 and this represented 10.36% of the total number of SES members (Office of Personnel Management, 2013). As the figure below reveals, the proportion of African-American in SES in 2010 represented 9.3% of the total. This shows that the 2012 figure represented a growth of 1.06% over a period of two years.
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Figure SEQ Figure * ARABIC 1: 2010 SES Memberships by Race/Ethnicity
Policy on SES
The policy initiative on SES is to increase diversity in the Senior Executive Service so that the SES staff reflect diversity reflected across the nation as the number of people from various parts of the globe keep changing thereby changing the racial and ethnic landscape of the nation. For proper socio-political balance, better management of social resources that have been pooled from various parts of the world, it is also imperative to have a balance in the representation in government bodies such as SES. This diversity should also include the gender factor. The graph below, which is adopted from Office of Personnel Management, shows the gender representation in the SES over the years extending from 2008 to 2012.
Figure SEQ Figure * ARABIC 2: Gender Representation
The graph shows that while the number of women members in the SES has been increasing slightly over the years, the number male members have sharply stood out as the majority.
Analysis of policy
As the number of African American men and women continues to grow in the general population, it is imperative that this change is also reflected in the SES membership. This approach is essential in ensuring that the SES reflects the diversity and the changing demographic landscape of the nation so that the nation lives to its spirit and objective of a land that provides equal opportunities that are democratically representative.
The Obama administration has been keen on the issue of diversity continually showing interest in improving representativeness of the various groups that form the population of the and this includes the African American men and women. With respect to the time frame within which the policy should last, the policy to balance the membership of SES so that the proportion of African American member SESs reflects the proportion in the entire population should be an endeavor that is taken on a going concern basis. Based on the statistical data from the US Census Bureau, the number of Blacks or African American men and women represented about 13.1% of the entire US population. In contrast, as already seen from the representation in the SES, African American men and women comprised 10.36% of the SES membership during the same fiscal year 2012 (US Census Bureau 2013). This reveals a shortage of about 2.64%. It is therefore proper to increase the number of African American men and women to make the SES reflect the picture in the entire population.
With the above revelation, there should a plan that puts a strong emphasis on enhancing the racial, gender and ethnic balance in the career SES to reflect the nation as it is at different times. Given the findings that have been presented in this policy analysis paper and drawn from federal government sources such as the Office of Personnel Management and the US Census Bureau, priority should be placed on addressing representation of African American men and women in the senior positions in the federal agencies.
Theoretical framework
Critical Race Theory (CRT) is used in this policy analysis as the main guiding framework. The CRT has various tenets that provide the pillars for supporting the study. The first is that the theory holds racism as an ordinary aspect and not an aberrational aspect the way society views business. Thus racism is viewed as an ordinary everyday experience of the diverse people in the society. Secondly, the CRT holds that the preponderance of white-over-color ascendancy plays an important role with respect to materiality and psychic aspects of the society. Another tenet of the theory is that race and races are just outcomes of social thought and social relations but are not objective or inherent. Lastly, CRT views race and racialization as dynamic and called upon based on diverse factors such as paradigm shift in the needs of the labor market (Delgado et al 2006).
Research Methodology: qualitative case study research
The research approach to be used in this study is qualitative case study research. Research in management disciplines can be considered as exploratory and conclusive research designs, according to McKay and Marshall (2001). Where the investigator has to gather huge quantities of already available data, assimilate such information available from literature, exploratory research is most suitable, say Saunders et al (2006). The same author points out that an intuitive comprehension of the research subject is a basic necessity for any researcher which can be realized through exploratory research. The advantage of this research is that it helps the researcher gather and understand the actual situation pertaining to the research problem in hand and also develop intuitive understanding of the theories and industry standards and practices associated with the problem. The disadvantage is that the approach is too vast and cannot point to conclusive solutions or recommendations to the problem, according to Saunders et al. (2003). Therefore, this design alone will not be sufficient for any research to be very meaningful. That is why adding cases study on it boosts the validity of the outcome.
The above paragraph implies that the findings from the exploratory research need to be corroborated through much more deeper and pointed research to the specific research situation, which is possible through the conclusive research design, according to Susan (1994) and this design is more comprehensive and structured. Shenton (2004) argues that while exploratory research can help in the formulation of hypotheses, the conclusive research can help in testing these hypotheses to be valid or invalid.
Leadership theory: Critical Race Theory and Lack of Fit Theory
The leadership theory employed in this policy analysis is the Critical Race Theory and Lack of Fit Theory. According to Delgado et al (2006), Critical Race Theory:
“…It is a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power. The movement considers many of the same issues that conventional civil rights and ethnic studies discourses take up, but places them in a broader perspective that includes economics, history, context, group- and self-interest, and even feelings and the unconscious. Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.” –Delgado et al 2006, p. 1
Lack of Fit Theory is also important for the study and it shall basically provide a reference point for assessing the reasons for scarcity of African Americans in the SES.
Leadership style: Transformational Leadership
In order for the policy changes to be effective, there are some leadership challenges that have to be overcome. The right leadership qualities and style are needed in order to steer the policy changes to success. With respect to this a leadership style that can propel the policy to success entails one that is flexible enough to accommodate dynamic nature of the demographic landscape, be able to deal with the sensitivity associated with racial and ethnic matters and have the ability to influence everyone toward accepting that the change is needed and necessary. Such is the quality of transformational leadership. A transformational leader will be able approach change with flexibility that is needed hence handle resistance properly.
Research question
This policy paper addresses three main questions. The first is the question of what causes scarcity of African American men and women in senior level federal government positions in the US. The Lack of Fit Theory is partly consulted to help in exploring the possible answers to the question. This question is essential in exploring and documenting the various factors that lead to discrepancy between the proportion of African Americans in the senior federal government positions and those in the general population. The second question is: how can the representation of African American men and women be increased in SES to reflect the proportion in the US population of African Americans? The second question is important because it will help in exploring the various approaches and alternatives and determine the optimal approaches to reach the desired objective without experiencing a boomerang effect. Lastly, another important question is what factors are essential for achieving the desired representation of African Americans in SES. Through, this last question, it becomes possible to assess the necessary system changers, leadership requirements among other factors that must be cultivated into the policy change efforts.
Population sample:
The sample for the study is drawn from the Department of Health and Human Services and it mainly targets African American male and female member SES. Since the study takes a case study qualitative approach, the sample is a representative of the entire African American pool of workforce in the various departments. The sample is not only supposed to be compared against the rest of the departments but also to be compared with the general SES representation at the national levels.
References
Congress (2009) H.R. 2721 (111th): Senior Executive Service Diversity Assurance Act 111th Congress, 2009–2010. Text as of Jun 04, 2009 (Introduced). https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/111/hr2721/text
Delgado, R., Stefancic, J. & Harris, A. (2006) from Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. New York University Press. http://www.nyupress.org/19309chapt1.php
Kohli, J., Gans, J. & Hairston, J. (2011) A Better, More Diverse Senior Executive Service in 2050: More Representative Leadership Will Improve the Effectiveness and Efficiency of the Federal Government; Center for American Progress
McKay, J. & Marshall, P. (2001). The dual imperatives of action research. Information Technology and People, Vol.14, No.1, pp.48-59.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. (2006). Research Methods for Business Students, 3rd Ed. London: Prentice Hall. 0273709909, 9780273709909
Shenton, A.K. (2004). Strategies for ensuring trustworthiness in qualitative research projects. Education for Information, Vol.22, No.1, pp.63-75.
Susan, B. (1994). Research students’ early experiences with the literature review. Studies in Higher Education, Vol.19, No.2, pp.217-236.
U.S. Census Bureau, (2011) “More Working Women Than Men Have College Degrees, Census Bureau Reports,” News release, April 26, 2011, available at http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/education/cb11- 72.html.
U.S. Census Bureau, (2013) “USA Quick Facts from the US Census Bureau” http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html
A tale of two cities
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
Student’s name
Institution
A tale of two cities
A tale of two cities is a novel depicting the lives and times of the people of France during the reign of King Louis xvi. It is a period that was marred with extensive suffering as the aristocrats ruled with an iron fist subjecting the masses to untold suffering. The novel’s setting is before, during and after the French revolution which saw very many people lose their lives. Charles Dickens is trying to use the events that occurred in France to warn the people of England especially the ruling class of an impending danger. His sample I would say is very sufficient as some measures were actually taken to avert in revolution in England.
Charles Dickens gathers information from the occurrences of the French revolution to try and convince the reader that the same fate can become of England if appropriate and necessary actions are not taken. He uses both inductive and deductive reasoning in his 45 chapter novel to try and bring his message to light. Deductive reasoning involves trying to get at a certain conclusion by making generalizations heading to a conclusion of the specific while inductive reasoning involves studying the specific events first and generalizing from the same (Rudinow& Barry, 2008).
In his case, Dickens took the events that were occurring in France to convince the nobles and the ruling elite in England that England was not immune to the France’s fate. He continually compares the living conditions of the people in England to those of the people in France. There is no much difference in his comparison leading him to generalize that the safe fate could affect England as there were no significant differences between the two countries. He uses deductive reasoning to prescribe a way in which England could avert the fate of France as he loved his country very much.
In my case, I usually use deductive reasoning where I first concentrate on the general occurrences before making conclusions with the specifics. This ensures that I do not miss out on any information.
Reference
Rudinow, J., & Barry, E.V. (2008). Invitation to critical thinking. Belmont, CA:
Thomson Higher Education.