Crazy.

Crazy.

“You’re Crazy.” No other phrase has attempted to put down so many genius ideas, so many solutions in the making. What is craziness? Is it simply differing from the normal in thought? What if one thinks too much, reviewing and reviewing their actions and their future, if we can hope to including everything into our considerations, then we will be crazy in any sense of the word.  Therefore it is important to not look too far ahead, for it can drive a man into madness. This common madness, existing in the stress of our streets and schools, was explored by many even before its sources came about. Edgar Allen Poe wrote “The Tell Tale Heart” in 1843, one of the many “gothic fictions” he is famous for. Even before him, Edward Young published “The Complaint: or Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality,” otherwise known as “Night Thoughts,” exploring very similar concepts. “The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe and “The Complaint: or Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality” both showcase a madness caused by over contemplating to the point of overwhelming.
    In Edward Young’s poem, he himself is over contemplating, and therefore drives the poem into a madness of predictions. In “The Tell Tale Heart,” the narrator has very successfully committed a murder, however he gives himself away by being too careful when policemen arrive, too welcoming, and they suspect him of his crime. Rather than arrest him on the spot, they continue looking through the house, making small talk until he eventually realizes that they know, and falls into a fit of insanity. “In human hearts what bolder thought can rise, Than man's presumption on tomorrow's dawn?” (Young) is the principle that turns a murderer into a madman. If perhaps the narrator had acted with caution, not been as confident in his security, had not over compensated with his acting to the police, he would have gotten away scot free. Of course he is a madman nevertheless, killing somebody requires a pre existing unbalance in the mind, but it is he, not the policemen, that finally rats himself out. Overthinking kills him, as it becomes uncontrollable.
    Prevalent in both stories is an escalation, a common wonderance turned into a full out statement about the way we live our lives.
 “At thirty man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
    At fifty chides his infamous delay,
   Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought
    Resolves, and re-resolves:then dies the same.” (Young)
The killer in “The Tell Tale Heart” starts off just plotting, waiting for the perfect moment to kill, reforming his plan, delaying, resolving, and finally kills just as he would have had he not waited. He develops an obsession with his own brilliance, every detail is thought out to the extreme, although the climax is not in fact the actual murder, but rather at the end, when he finally bursts. “‘Villains!’ I shrieked, ‘dissemble no more! I admit the deed!-tear up the planks- here, here!- it is the beating of his hideous heart.’” (83). It is impossible that the old man's heart is still beating, he has been dead now for an hour, but the murderer has been reviewing the murder in his head, marvelling at it, and he imagines the heart.
        What is craziness? In order for there to be a different, or crazy, there must be a normal, a theoretical perfect individual who is 100% not special. In “The Tell Tale Heart,” Poe does not give any look into the thoughts of a normal individual, even the old man is abnormal, with his humongous eye, and the police are portrayed as mocking, enjoying themselves as someone is driven insane. Therefore, if there is no ‘normal’ to base actions off of, we can only assume that the speaker is ‘normal’ in the story. In Young’s poem, the speaker is trusted simply because there is no reason not too, classic English poets are rarely doubted. Had the same lines been spewed from a murderer, a psychopath, they would have no credibility. If the rambles in “The Tell Tale Heart” were given in another context, they would not be thrown away as crazy rambles. Two pieces convey similar themes, however they are interpreted differently.
        Almost everyone has thought something that they regret thinking, something that they know they should not speak, and yet we do not consider ourselves crazy. These two literary works examine the actions taken on these thoughts, does a reader then have the right to say that one is insane and the other is not? All that is lacking from “The Tell Tale Heart” is a sense of restraint, and yet that in itself does not imply craziness in everyday life. If it is as easy to become crazy as in the poem or story, shouldn't we all be crazy already? If so, then crazy is normal. Perhaps nobody said it better than the villain Syndrome, in The Incredibles, “...when everyone’s super, no one will be.”

    Check out the poem here: Click On Me!
    Check out another version of the story here: Click On Me!