"The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe

In this short story, Edgar Allan Poe exposes the five stages of coping with death, which are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, in that specific order. At the beginning of the tale we see presence of denial when the narrator makes clear that he is not crazy and the excuse he uses is that no mad man would have ever done what he did and in the way he planned that the old man’s death. He does not want to admit he is mad and desperate. He does not know when he started feeling like that. On the second paragraph he does not recall when the idea entered his mind, but recognizes that once it took place inside his mind, his nightmare started.

Anger:

For the way he proceeded to kill the old man, it can be understood that he is scrupulous and vigilant. The way he would enter the old man’s room for eight days without being heard or seen, almost not breathing, planning very carefully his death, was particularly dreadful. He gets so angry with the “evil eye” he finally decides to terminate the old man’s life once and for all and attacks him. After that the dismembered the old man and hides him in pieces bellow the floor.

Bargaining:

He then enters the third stage. He behaves in a nice way when the police officers ask him to go into the house responding to a neighbor complaint about the old man’s scream. In some way he wants to change his destiny and not look suspicious by trying to be calm, friendly and polite like nothing happened in that house.

Depression:

He feels comfortable until his conscious starts knocking his head and confuses the beating of his heart with the beating of the old man’s heart. He panics thinking that the police officers would listen to the same thing he is listening or suspect that the man is hiding something. His own paranoia and guilt betrays him deeply.

Acceptance:

After pretending to ignore his crime, he confesses his brutal true to those two men, whom he did not recognize as police officers but villains being he the only one. He uncovers the dead pieces of the old man and gives them the beating heart.