If you have ever been into creepy stories, then you have likely heard of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.” This is a well-known short story about a man who was so triggered by an old man’s hideous eye, that he mentally went insane and killed the old man. The narrator in this story can easily be compared to the insanity shown in Nellie Bly’s Ten Days in a Madhouse. In Ten Days in a Madhouse Bly fakes her insanity to be put into an insane asylum to observe what it is like on the inside. As both “The Tell-Tale Heart” and Ten Days in a Madhouse may seem drastically different at first glance, they both show similarities throughout the stories by showing different views on insanity during the 1800’s.

Edgar Allan Poe’s story of “The Tell-Tale Heart” shows the cruel, twisted, and creepy side of insanity. The story written in 1843 reveals a man who was so unstable in his own mind, he killed a man he found to be a friend, just for having a crazy eye. The murderer did not see anything wrong with what he had done. Well at least not until his conscious was so heavy that he could hear what he had thought to be the dead man’s heartbeat. According to the article written on the Literature Arts Medicine Database,  the murderer in “The Tell-Tale Heart” is “dreadfully nervous” which is said to be a sign in the story that he is mentally insane (Miksanek). This article states how it is an obsession of the murderer to go into the man’s room every night, look at his eye, and leave (Miksanek). He had been planning this murder, with no remorse. The narrator even states, “but why will you say that I am mad?” (Poe 74) which shows that he is in denial about being insane, but the writer, Poe, is pointing out hints for the readers to understand that he is indeed insane. Insanity in “The Tell-Tale Heart” can easily relate to Nellie Bly’s Ten Days in a Madhouse, which was written in 1887. In Ten Days in a Madhouse, Bly explains her personal experience being in an insane asylum, surrounded by many people who were considered insane during that time, just as the murderer in “The Tell-Tale Heart” appears to be.

In the second paragraph of “The Tell-Tale Heart, the narrator, who later becomes the murderer, states: 

“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.” (Poe).

This statement from the narrator shows that he truly had no significant reason to commit murder on this man he claims to have “loved.” No sane man would kill someone that they loved. This is one of many signs shown within this short story that this man is obviously mentally ill. In Ten Days in a Madhouse, Chapter VIII states “"Insane!" she repeated, incredulously. "It cannot be seen in your face."” (Bly). This shows that many people who appear insane, are not considered insane, and many people who are not insane, are labeled to be so. If they had truly thought that Bly did not look like she belonged in asylum, they would have further investigated her to find out she was indeed mentally stable. But assuming so, many people who came into that “madhouse” had not looked unstable. Comparing these two stories shows that especially during the 1800’s, people who were labeled as “insane,” were likely diagnosed incorrectly, or too easily, and many people still wandered around outside of the insane asylum without ever being considered to have a mental health issue.

The two stories can be seen as completely different views on insanity. With Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” being the extreme end of insanity, with committing murder, and Bly’s Ten Days in a Madhouse showing the people who are actually receiving treatment and help, even though the nurses in this writing do not do a good job at helping. When Bly refers to the patients inside the asylum, she never once seems scared of any of them, or as if any are a threat. In chapter eleven it is stated, “Imagine plunging that sick girl into a cold bath when it made me, who have never been ill, shake as if with ague. I heard her explain to Miss Grupe that her head was still sore from her illness.” (Bly). Bly had felt bad for most of the patients stuck inside this madhouse. This shows that some of the people who were put into insane asylums during the 1800’s were people who were simply just ill. 

When comparing the insanity shown in “The Tell-Tale Heart” and Ten Days in a Madhouse, one of the first things that comes to mind is that during this time period, the 1800’s, there was no true way to diagnose someone with a mental illness. Doctors could have easily misdiagnosed a patient, and then that patient could be stuck in an insane asylum for the rest of their lives. People like the narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” could have never been diagnosed with any sort of disorder. In comparison, in 2016, these problems still occur. People are misdiagnosed frequently, and also there are many people out there who have serious mental health disorders and have never been diagnosed with anything. The main difference between 1800’s and now-a-days when it comes to insanity is that we have the technology to help most disorders out in present time, versus sticking someone into an insane asylum for the rest of their existence. As we view these two stories during 2016, we can see just how things have changed over time when it comes to being mentally insane. This is important due to the fact that the two stories are nearly opposites of each other. In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the man was definitely mentally unstable, but was treated as he was an ordinary man. On the opposite hand, Nellie Bly in Ten Days in a Madhouse was not even mentally ill but she had went to the insane asylum during a harsh time when the mentally ill were treated as they were not even humans.

As both “The Tell-Tale Heart” and Ten Days in a Madhouse may seem drastically different at first glance, they both show similarities throughout the stories by showing different views on insanity during the 1800’s. Both of these two well-written stories show just how drastic the difference was between different types of mentally unstable people during this time period. From one end of murder, to the other end of a woman shivering in a bathtub because she is sick, both stories help the readers imagine what life could have been like when harsh insane asylums still existed. Overall, both of the two stories show a side of insanity that no reader ever hopes to witness themselves in real life.
