Mental illness, will we ever really
understand it? Do we stand any chance to agree upon a clear and objective
definitions of madness, insanity, depravity, or even approach a firm
comprehension of what constitutes the opposite, the supposed psychological equilibrium,
or what is normal and healthy?
Our protagonist – like every other
one I could remember with paranoid-schizophrenic tendencies – expresses uncanny
hypersensitivity, with an emphasis on acute hearing, and it is a well-documented
scientific fact that heightened sense hearing is associated with blindness,
loss of sight, which could arguably be
employed in a figurative sense, by way of demonstrating how we must go deeper
in the darkness in order to perceive certain intimate truths. Yet, the tale which
is told through sound (the heartbeat)
has started with the eye, the scared eye
of the rabbit, for there is a rabbit for every vulture, a victim for each prey,
is the author indicating subtly to the social dimensions of the story? … the
old wealthy master clinging to dear
life, living in luxury and having our poor protagonist not just as a servant,
but as a reason to feel better, for it is indeed a low human sentiment to draw a sense of strength and self-worth
from the sight of weakness and humiliation. Especially when it is life itself
that you see slowly drain from that youthful will, the most disgusting notion
of taking pleasure in the suffering of others seem to be A predominantly predatory instinct.
The mutually wild conception of the
situation in the household was clearly
outlined in the silent edgy hour in the old man’s bedroom, “he could not hear
me, he could not see me, yet he felt me there” our narrator states, but what is
it then, that which allowed the inevitable
detection of the existence of a murderer in the room? Applying
Neuroergonomics to our analysis, if we
could push our ideas about the instinctive motif in the story one could claim
that it might’ve been an olfactory process, the smell of that stressed person
just standing there, it is a multiply replicated study that amygdaloidal
activation is more enthusiastic upon smelling the sweat from a stressed person,
unlike the smell of sweat of someone who was just working out for instance, but
maybe that’s too materialistic of an
evaluation, of a romantic story; i would argue against that because my
understanding of romanticism/Bohemianism or at least poe’s romanticism is
always linked with a very concrete understanding of reality and the savagery of
the world, that’s actually the main motivation for having any romantic aspiration, because the romantic
artist thus would have come from a place of intimate acquaintance of the
concrete, and a singular view of how the human being is trapped into having
excessive awareness of it. That part of the cosmos that was both blessed and
cursed by the ability to conceptualize about the world and itself, and share these concepts via language and
culture, prometheus will always choose curiosity regardless of his fate,
because it too is destined for him, built into his genes, a part of his nervous
system through which he finds every meaning in the human act, as well as none ,
The beating heart then would
represents the very organic, the ceaseless will of life ,of which a “normal”
human being is naturally oblivious. That train of thought is bound to lead us
to the subtlest insinuations embedded inside the tale, which include the simple
fact that there were never any different voices, visions, nor opinions outside
the sole frantic whispers of the disturbed narrator, so there is the idea of
course that maybe it is all in his
head, maybe he truly did lose distinction of that fine line between fact and
fiction, events in real time and tails, the self and the other.. Perhaps our
protagonist is trying to or in the process if killing himself, the story
definitely includes-it even opens with- mental or intellectual suicide, a complete admission of the abject
helplessness of the narrator at the task of establishing these boundaries,
Whatever way in which we perceive of
the tale, the author explicitly dictates that it is told by the heart, the
symbol for the organic, as well as being a most recognizable romantic symbol of
the complex emotional existence of humans, but most of all it is a gothic
symbol for what is essential and vital, and works at the center of the system,
yet lurks in the shadows outside the spotlight of our ordinary awareness.
Since the heartbeat is an
involuntary process, and we are relieved by natural means from the unbelievable
burdens of carrying out these processes
in our conscious attention. Going through the collective work of Poe, the
reader is constantly obliged to face
that particular theme, i.e. the red mask of death talks as well of the hidden
forces working with a vague yet unescapable influence, once again
we encounter a character driven by the fight or flight instincts, but this time
it’s flight, instead of lunging and stabbing at the unknown as our friend from
the tell-tale heart, we can also try our best to escape, Sisyphus too will
always defy death and consider it his main enemy , for he too will be extremely
reluctant to change his aspirations, also paying no heed to the imminent
punishment of the gods, as the boulder rolls downhill every time he would push
it up the mountain, similarly our attempts seem to be cursed to fail, it is the allusion towards either
revolt and passion, or escapism and absurdism, but both succumb to ironically
similar conclusion, with a little hidden message from a bohemian spirit: “we
can’t fight or escape what we do not rightfully and clearly understand.” and yet we do, every day, every time we
decide to get out of bed and live another day, every time we communicate, every
time we fight, every time we read, every time we do science, every time we
create, we love it, not because we have knowledge that it will end well, and
prosperous but because it is a part if us, a piece of the puzzle of our
identity, and with every unconscious beat of our hearts.
and as a poet and an artist, the
author in no way tries to enforce his own moral attitudes towards the
philosophical crisis, but rather paints the picture, and put the reader in
perspective for the sight of the chaos
and ignorance that engulf our reality; as if to make him wonder: “what do i
really know?” and the Socratic answer :”I only know that I know nothing’ would
be the most appropriate and satisfying for our author. In the Greek mythology men and gods equally
submit to the obscure powers of the principles of nature, this was
controversially the beginning of the western approach to epistemology, the
search for the laws of nature, to which all creation abides, the pinnacle onto which modern civilization
stands. Edgar Allan Poe has stressed a similar point of view throughout his
production, However he did not personally prefer any serious endeavours for
unlocking the mysteries of the world, for he embraced and reflected the
enigmatic, and that is a crucial point for having a better sense and insight into any of his works, he is the
kind of artist that puts you in direct cruel contact with the worst fears and
nightmarish atmospheres, and simply dismisses all of it with abject cynicism,
and self-mockery: “tis the wind and nothing more”.
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