Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is defined as "an anxiety disorder in which a person suffers from obsessions and/or compulsions" (Wood 407). In Edgar Allen Poe's short story, "The Tell-Tale Heart," the narrator shows signs of having Obsessive Compulsive Disorder when wakes up at midnight and ritualizes how he is going to kill the old man, when he creates a personified image of the old man's eye, and according to a critic, Daniel Hoffman, when he believes that the sound of his own heart beat is the old man's heart. In the beginning of the story the narrator tells us that he has a disease: "The disease had sharpened my senses-not destroyed-not dulled them" (Poe 34). This disease that the narrator displays to us has characteristics in common with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

The narrator was persistent and went through a ritual every nig

When the narrator personifies the old man's eye as being evil, the narrator is having a persistent, recurring, involuntary image invade his conscious thought. An obsession is defined as "a persistent, recurring, involuntary thought, image, or impulse that invades the consciousness and causes the suffer great distress" (Wood 408). The narrator describes the eye as that of being a "vultures eye." He goes further to describe it as "a pale blue color" and "filmy" (Poe 34). The narrator also gives the eye actions that it does with out the old man's help, such as when the Evil Eye looked at him and made his blood run cold.

Wood, Samuel E. and Ellen Green. The Essential World of Psycology. MA A Pearson Education Company, 2000.

The narrator shows another sign of obsession when he hears his own heart beat but mistakes it for the old man's heart beat that he has just killed. This sound starts in his head and then invades his consciousness. It is this invading sound of a heartbeat that drives the

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Approximate Word count = 682
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)