Dr. James Knoll, a forensic psychiatrist, says: “Paranoia exists on a spectrum of severity. ...Many perpetrators fall into the middle gray zone, where psychiatrists will disagree about the relative contributions of moral failure versus mental affliction. " Dr. Knoll mentions that, among murderers, the line that defines their motivations tends to be rather gray. Both Dorian Gray from the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and the narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart" harbor serious problems psychological, ultimately leading them to murder; the motives behind their actions have similar roots: madness and the Tell-Tale Heart The narrator both suffers from paranoia and his mental state gradually worsens over time, showing the zone. gray between moral and mental issues. Say no to plagiarism Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get the original essay The image of Dorian Gray depicts a very vivid succession of. events that show the complete transformation of a young man from innocence to corruption Dorian Gray's journey to depravity is clearly described in the novel: starting with his first contact with the real world and ending with the murder of 'a man. friend then commits suicide (Wilde 21, 229). Dorian is not born with a damaged soul, in fact, he creates it himself: "If it were me who had to be forever young, and the painting which had to age!" For that, for that, I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the world that I wouldn't give! I would give my soul for that! (Wilde 28) » He is haunted by this realization but is not truly affected by it until he abandons Sibyl Vane and has a hideous wrinkle in her portrait (Wilde 96). After this, his descent from purity to total corruption gains momentum. In fact, at one point he “became more and more enamored of his own beauty, more and more interested in the corruption of his own soul” (Wilde 191). This culminates with Dorian stabbing himself at the end of the novel (Wilde 229). For his part, the narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart” does not start out completely disturbed at the beginning of his story; the old man's cataractous eye freaked him out (Poe 64). However, the way he tried to rid his mind of the "evil eye" was completely crazy. His progression to madness is much faster than Dorian Gray's, but, since it's a short story, the progression makes sense. At first he is simply bothered by the eye, however, entering the old man's room at midnight to shine a light on the offending eye for an entire week is simply strange (Poe 65). Finally, he spends the whole night entering the old man's room, he wakes the old man and suffocates him, kills him and dismembers him; he does not neglect the appendages, for they are carefully stored under the floor (Poe 66). When he is “confronted” by the police, he believes in his deranged mind that they are laughing at him and therefore confesses to the murder, trying to save his insane pride that he gets from his perfect plan (Poe 67). This shows how far from his sanity the narrator is, even though he states in the first sentence that he is perfectly fine (Poe 64). Both Dorian Gray and the narrator have a wild but defined progression from mental clarity to mental illness. As Dorian Gray commits more and more horrible acts for the sick pleasure of visually tainting his soul, he becomes more and more paranoid that someone will find his portrait. , in all its ancient, wrinkled and ugly splendor. It begins with Basil's first visit to Dorian after Sibyl Vane's suicide, when he asks Dorian why.