Gothic Elements and Psychoanalytic Study in the Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

Abstract

Exploring horrifying events and mental disorder experienced by an actor in a fiction can be one of satisfying activities for the view of reader’s response. This article would present ‘gothic’ elements and the Psychoanalytic Criticism in The Tell-tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe. The short story was chosen because it was guessed that the narrator  underwent mental disorder; he did violents acts till he committed murder. The method used in  this study is a descriptive qualitative. The results showed that ‘gothic’ elements found in the story are horror, mystery, and romantic.  In addition, the main character gets mental disorder called “schizophrenia”. The main character seems to have mental disorder called ‘schizophrenia’, categorized as “catatonic”. The narrator experiences the four stages of halluciations and delusions: conforting, condemning, controlling, and conquering which deal with “delusion”, and “hallucination”.