Dr. James Knoll, a forensic psychiatrist, states: “Paranoia exists on a spectrum of severity. ...Many offenders find themselves in the gray zone in between, where psychiatrists disagree about the relative contributions of moral failure versus mental affliction. "Dr. Knoll states that, in murderers, the line that defines their motivations tends to be rather gray. Both Dorian Gray of the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and the narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart" harbor serious psychological problems, which ultimately leads them to murder. The motives behind their actions have similar roots: madness Gray and the narrator of Tell-Tale Heart both suffer from paranoia and progressively worsen mentally over time, showing the gray area between moral and mental problems. .Say No to Plagiarism Get a Tailored Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Exist” Get an Original Essay The Picture of Dorian Gray paints a very vivid succession of events that shows the complete transformation of a young man from 'innocence to corruption. Dorian Gray's journey to depravity is clearly outlined in the novel: starting from his first contact with the real world and ending with the murder of a friend and then suicide (Wilde 21, 229). Dorian is not born with a damaged soul, rather, he creates it himself, “If it were I who should always be young, and the image that should grow old! For this, for this, I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the world I wouldn't give! I would give my soul for this! (Wilde 28)” He is haunted by this realization, but is actually unaffected by it until he abandons Sibyl Vane and gets a hideous wrinkle on his portrait (Wilde 96). After that, his descent from purity to total corruption gains momentum. In fact, at a certain point he “fell more and more in love with his own beauty, more and more interested in the corruption of his own soul” (Wilde 191). This culminates in Dorian stabbing himself at the end of the novel (Wilde 229). For his part, the narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart" doesn't start out entirely deranged at the beginning of his story; the old man's cataracted eye frightened him (Poe 64). However, the way he tried to free his mind from the “Evil Eye” was completely crazy. His progression to madness is much quicker than Dorian Gray's, but since this is a short story, the progression makes sense. At first he is simply disturbed 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, wakes the old man and suffocates him, kills him and dismembers him; he does not neglect the appendages, as they are tucked well under the floorboards (Poe 66). When he is "confronted" by the police, he believes in his deranged mind that they are playing him and therefore confesses to the murder, attempting to save his demented pride that he harbors from his perfect plan (Poe 67). This shows how advanced the narrator is in terms of mental health, even though in the first sentence he claims to be 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 increasingly horrific deeds for the sick enjoyment of visually tainting his soul, he becomes increasingly paranoid that someone might find his portrait. , in all its old, wrinkled, ugly glory. It begins with Basil's first visit to Dorian after Sibyl Vane's suicide, when he asks Dorian why he covered the portrait and why he does not want to let him, the artist, see it (Wilde 115). Dorian is terrified that Basil will find the wrinkle on his face otherwise.