" YOUR EDITION of POE) the Narrator of the Fall of the House of Usher has turned the perspective of Tell-Tale Heart on its edge. In this instance, it is a perfectly sane man who is introducing us to the mind-destroying propensities of Roderick Usher's ancestral abode. From this point onward, we can "understand," or "sympathize," with the plight of the Usher family. As in so many other tales by Poe, the author is trying to tell us that insanity begins as sanity. We enter into the minds of the deranged and depraved - or those who observe them - and we come to comprehend the forces that cause that slow descent into the maelstrom of psychic torment. We learn, too, how difficult...

Gerald. "The Limits of Reason: Poe's Deluded Detectives." On Poe: The Best from American Literature. Eds. Budd, Louis J. And Edwin H. Cady. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993. 172-184. http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=101359115
Magistrale, Tony. Student Companion to Edgar Allan Poe. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001.

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Terr, Lenore. Too Scared to Cry: Psychic Trauma in Childhood. New York: Basic Books, 1990.