Euthanasia and Reincarnation: A Reader - Response Reading of Poe’s “The Tell- Tale Heart”

Document Type : Original papers

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Faculty of Arts, English Department, Suez University, Suez

Abstract

This paper sheds light on the reader as a crucial side of the triangle which includes: the reader, the text, and the author. Firstly, I highlight the contours of the reader – response theory by the prominent theorist Wolfgang Iser who stresses the role of the reader to fill in the gaps in a literary text. Secondly, I argue that Edgar Allan Poe’s nineteenth century short story, The Tell- Tale Heart, is a story of euthanasia and reincarnation, rather than a story of a crime committed by a schizophrenic caregiver/a servant who suffers from OCD, as established in earlier research articles. Hence, I prove the inexhaustibility of the text as highlighted by Iser. I do so by drawing on the dynamics of Iser’s theory, filling in the gaps about the characters of the old man and the care giver, shedding light on the physical and psychological medicine as well as referring to the societal and cultural norms at this time. In the light of Iser’s theory, I refer to particular personal experiences that highlight the “how” of reaching a particular understanding of a text is possible. Euthanasia is a very thorny issue because it touches on religion, beliefs, cultural norms, medicine, philosophy, law, and more. Hence, this issue proves to be an interdisciplinary one where euthanasia intersects with reincarnation and the short story.

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