Fracturing identity beyond the self and the other ~ Part 1
the Eye, Madness, and the Collapse of Rational Selfhood
This is Part 1 of a serialized essay exclusive to my paid subscribers, in which I explore Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart and the psychological fracture that emerges within its narrator as the boundaries between the self and the other begin to dissolve.
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PART 1
At first glance, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart appears to be a confession. The narrator recounts the murder of an old man, insisting on their sanity while attempting to justify the act.
Yet Poe is interested in more than the crime itself.
The confession exposes a mind struggling to maintain coherence, where guilt, obsession, and perception become entangled. What emerges moves beyond the story of a murder, unveiling a self gradually coming apart.
Hidden beneath the narrative of guilt lies a deeper question:
where does the self end and the other begin?