Select the correct answer.
which theme is conveyed in this excerpt from "the tell-tale heart" by edgar allan poe?
truei-nervous--very, very dreadfully nervous i had been and am; but why will you say that i am mad? the disease had sharpened my senses-not destroyed
-not dulled them. above all was the sense of hearing acute. i heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. i heard many things in hell. how, then, am i mad?
hearken! and observe how healthily-how calmly i can tell you the whole story.
it is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. object there was none. passion there was none. i
loved the old man. he had never wronged me. he had never given me insult. for his gold i had no desire. i think it was his eye! yes, it was this! he had the eye
of a vulture-a pale blue eye, with a film over it. whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees-very gradually made up my mind to take
the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.
a.
the insane have no sense of time.
b.
the insane are obsessed with mortality.
c.
the insane are incapable of using deception.
d.
the insane lack imagination.
e.
the insane live in a reality of their own.

The theme conveyed in the given excerpt from "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe is “The insane live in a reality of their own”.

Option E

Explanation:

the first proposition is to question economic materialism and victorian christianity. the lines are:

“it moves us not.—great god! i'd rather be

a pagan suckled in a creed outworn; ”

wordsworth is stating that nature no longer interests mankind, that the latter is not “moved” by it and explains that ancient western paganism had a more positive attitude concerning nature since it lacked the perv erted judaeo-christian interpretation of having received the world and all its animals and elements from god to use as we , instead of humans actually being not only part of nature but its wardens, meant to appreciate it and protect it.

the next lines are:

“so might i, standing on this pleasant lea,

have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

have sight of proteus coming from the sea;

or hear old triton blow his wreathed horn.”

wordsworth here make it very clear that by actually looking and contemplating nature, human beings would reconnect with happiness, serenity and purpose. the use of mythological figures is quite evocative as well, proteus is a greek mythological god of the changing sea. he personifies the sea that changes, which symbolizes the way nature changes and inevitably can change to be destructive not only due to natural causes but to human pollution. furthermore, the sea is even more symbolic since all life originated in the sea so it is not only our past but our future since no life form in our planet can survive without water and if all water is destroyed in earth all life will be gone as well.

he then uses triton which is symbolic of the synthesis of both nature and mankind. triton is a mythological greek god that has the upper body of a man and the lower body of a fish (a merman). this human fish duality evokes the fact that humans are not only human but also part of nature, the fish tail representing nature. the main attribute of this god was that he used a conch shell as a horn to calm the roaring seas. in other words, triton uses nature through science for the benefit of human sailors who risk death during tempests. with the use of such metaphor, wordworth is conveying the message that human technology   is supposed to use nature to preserve nature and thereby humanity as well.

to kill a mockingbird basically is about a lawyer who goes against everything in a racist society like at the time of this novel, to defend a black man accused of sexual abuse. in the bible there are cases like that of joseph, who was accused by the woman of potifar, for a crime similar to that of tim robbinson, of that novel (genesis 39: 1-20). at this point we see that god also provides the escape to joseph, who was accused unjustly, but in his time, and through his attitude, his faith was not shaken, and god provided the solution. the perspective of god also written in the bible and not pay evil with evil. (ephesians 4: 32, 1 thessalonians 5: 15, 1 peter 3: 9). atticus, the lawyer, demonstrated during this lee novel, empathy, love of neighbor, understood the situation of this accused man. he went against everything in that society, and stood in favor of that man, for the injustice committed. this shows the empathy, the love taught by christ, in some passages that speak of love and justice in the sermon of the beatitudes (especially verses 6 and 7 of matthew 5).