Author Question: What might the old mans Evil Eye represent? What will be an ideal ... (Read 3428 times)

joesmith1212 · **on:** Jul 20, 2018

What might the old mans Evil Eye represent?

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

How do you account for the police officers chatting calmly with the murderer instead of reacting to the sound that stirs the murderer into a frenzy?

What will be an ideal response?

maya.nigrin17@yahoo.com · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 20, 2018

Answer to Question 1

Daniel Hoffman sees the old man as a father-figure, perhaps even a Father-Figure, and suggests that in striking at his eye the young madman strikes, symbolically, at his sexual power. Hoffman also says that the narrator is full of the praise of his own sagacity, a terrible parody of the true sagacity of a Dupin or a Legrand. For what he takes to be ratiocination is in fact the irresistible operation of the principle of his own perversity, the urge to do secret deeds, have secret thoughts undetected by the otherwise ever-watchful eye of the old man.

Answer to Question 2

The obvious explanation is that they hear nothing. The sound that torments the narrator is heard only by him, whether it be his own heart or a purely imaginary product of his guilt and madness. (See question 7 below.)