Paranoia, Neurotic Trauma, and Re-Traumatization as the Triad of Psychic Monomania in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1205.16Keywords:
monomania, neurosis, paranoia, traumaAbstract
This paper attempts to explore paranoia and trauma as the causes of psychological monomania in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.” The study focuses on the gradual development of the narrator’s paranoia stimulated by his aversive feelings toward the old man’s eagle eye. The discussion sheds light on Poe’s meticulous narrative descriptions of the narrator’s severe acute senses that make him undergo a horrible experience. The study looks into this experience as stimulation of his paranoia, which becomes the nexus of his hesitant decision to kill the old man. In this sense, paranoia and neurotic trauma will be explored as the impetus for the narrator’s monomania stirred by a re-traumatization experience. The study applies Sigmund Freud’s concepts of paranoia and neurotic trauma, as well as Shoshana Felman’s concept of re-traumatization, as a conceptual framework. Thus, these concepts will be utilized to analyze the psychic synthesis of monomania in relation to the protagonist’s gradual development of paranoia, neurotic trauma, and re-traumatization, respectively.
References
Abdeen, L.F. (2020). Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart”: Not quite a mirror image. British Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 24(1), 153-158.
Alsahafi, M. (2020). A narrative discourse analysis of Poe’s short story “The Tell-Tale Heart”: Implications for language teaching. English Language Teaching, 13(1), 1-17.
Amir, S. (2017). Analysis of the short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe. The Creative Launcher: An International, Open Access, Peer Reviewed, Refereed, E- Journal in English, II(III), 596-606.
Felman, S. (2002). The juridical unconscious: Trials and traumas in the twentieth century. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Fisher, H. (2020). Logic, syntax, and a structural view: The psychology of Trump's hall of mirrors. Cham: Springer International Publishing: Palgrave Macmillan.
Freud, S. (1920). A general introduction to psychoanalysis. New York: Boni and Liveright.
Freud, S. (1916-17). Introductory lectures on psychoanalysis. Lawrence, KS: Digireads.com Publishing.
Grosch-Miller, C. A. (2021). Trauma and pastoral care: A ministry handbook. London: Canterbury Press.
Leal, M., Beth, M., and Melissa, M. (2021). Intergenerational trauma and healing. Toronto, Ont.: Heartspeak Productions.
Moreland-Capuia, A. (2021). The trauma of racism: Exploring the systems and people fear built. Basel: Cham Springer International Publishing.
Nakamura, K., and Carta, S. (2021). Jungian psychology in the East and West: Cross-cultural perspectives from Japan. Milton: Taylor and Francis Group.
Papadopoulos, R. (2021). Involuntary dislocation: Home, trauma, resilience, and adversity-activated development. Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge.
Peters, E., and Richards, C. (2021). Early modern trauma: Europe and the Atlantic World. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Poe, E. A. (1843). The Tell-Tale Heart. Boston: James Russell Lowell and Robert Carter Magazine.
Simonsen, P., and Hogg, E. J. (2021). Precarity in contemporary literature and culture. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Theisen-Womersley, G. (2021). Trauma and resilience among displaced populations: A sociocultural exploration. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Tumber, H., and Waisbord, S. (2021). The Routledge companion to media disinformation and populism. Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge.
Willner, M., Hero, G., and Martin, M. (2020). Let’s review regents. New York: Kaplan, Inc., d/b/a Barron's Educational Series.
Yusuf, A. (2018). Gothic elements and psychoanalytic study in The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe. EDUCULTURAL: An International Journal of Education, Culture and Humanities, 1(1), 12-19.
