Jeremy Burrafato12-11-13ITA 4800-01Final EssayPsychoanalytic Criticism of Stories of MadmenThe descent into madness has been an aspect of many stories throughout human history. Voices in the head, delusions, as well as dreams and nightmares, are common in these types of stories. In The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, the characters in the stories face these types of problems. In The Tell-Tale Heart, the narrator/protagonist experiences an obsession with a physical trait of an older man, in which he associates himself with evil. This evil eye and the obsession with which the narrator feeds it ultimately causes the narrator to do the unthinkable. Kill the old man. A Christmas Carol tells the story of an elderly gentleman who experiences a series of encounters with ghosts who show him the error of his ways. These dream scenarios where he encounters these spirits are nothing more than real dreams and wish fulfillment based on his fears and guilt. Both of these classic tales weave notions of psychological complexity into their pages. The Tell-Tale Heart details the descent into madness of a man suffering from some form of paranoid schizophrenia; while A Christmas Carol reveals that its main character, while not having a traumatic form of mental illness like that of Poe's story, shares many anxieties and disappointments based on guilt and obsession, much like the narrator of The Tell- Tale Heart. Both characters have and deal with varying degrees of mental illness, or at least symptoms of such illnesses in one form or another. For the purposes of this essay, the version of the story that will be referenced is the one given to us in our class, so any reference to the st...... middle of paper ...... in the form of countless films, including those by Disney, as well as being a record-breaking theatrical work. The work of Charles Dickens has been a staple of writing for years, and this piece is no exception. The story of A Christmas Carol begins with a miserable old man named Scrooge working in his accounting office on Christmas Eve, his clerk sitting up front working like GOOD. Several people come in to say goodbye, including his nephew who he basically tells to go away after being invited to a Christmas party. It is then visited by people seeking donations for the poor. This creates Scrooge's hatred of the holiday as well as his greed. His greed is the main basis of his loneliness and anger, which are amplified during the holiday season. To understand Scrooge's hatred of the holiday season, one might look back to a time when he would have enjoyed..