tell tale heart argumentative essay

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The Tell-Tale Heart (1843) Essay

Introduction, character analysis, plot summary, internal versus external forces, works cited.

The introductory part will present the The Tell- Tale heart (1843), by Alan Edgar Poe, introducing the main characters viz. the narrator and the old man. The story opens with the unknown narrator confessing he is restless but not harebrained or insane, as some would want to think.

He narrates his story by defending his sound mind although he has murdered an innocent old man. The narrator lives with the old man; however, he claims that his supposedly housemate has an evil blue eye that evokes fear in him (the narrator). At this point, the narrator is not trustworthy because he does not even understand himself; he does not know whether he is psychologically sick or he is just another murderer.

This section tackles the main characters of the story and as aforementioned, the narrator and the old man are the only central characters in the story. The narrator is untrustworthy, self-righteous and a rigid person who leaves no space for learning.

He believes he is sane despite the fact that he kills the old man for no apparent reason. His sanctimonious overtones infringe is trustworthiness. On the other hand, the old man is just a victim of malice or covered insanity.

The plot summary will outline the flow of the story where once more the narrator plays the central role. As the story opens, the narrator insinuates he is insane by declaring he has a story to tell; however, the story is a defense to guard his sanity. Therefore, the events of this section will focus on the narrator as he puts forward his claims of sanity.

However, to understand where all the sanity ‘noises’ are coming from, this section will flashback to the one event that seems to infringe the narrator’s insanity; the murder of the old man. Again, the narrator’s trustworthiness is compromised for by defending his actions, he unknowingly exposes his unreliability.

The overriding theme in this story is the theme of paranoia. As the story opens, the narrator acknowledges that he is nervous for reasons he does not know. The thin, almost confusing, or blurred line between paranoia and madness comes out clearly. People think paranoia is synonymous to madness and perhaps this explains why the narrator is vehement in defending his sanity.

Paranoia in this context also underscores the blurred line between hate and love according to Benfey (78). Ironically, many a time individuals hurt the closest people in their lives. In this section, the narrator is trustworthy; he loves and needs the old man, yet he kills him.

Ironically, the presence of police officers who come to investigate the murder of the old man does not evoke any uneasiness in the narrator. However, the deafening sounds of fear and guilt that haunt the narrator seem to take away his peace. The narrator does not confess the murder because the offices push him; no, he confesses because of guilt and self-conviction.

At this point, the story tries to emphasize that internal forces are stronger than external forces. One can defy and deny external forces like rule of law; however, defying self-conviction is tantamount to committing suicide and the narrator comes out as a trustworthy source of this scenario.

The concluding part of the essay will try to piece together the ideas raised in the story. Running from introduction, though plot summary to themes; this section will give a concise recap of the whole story.

Benfey, Christopher. “Poe and the Unreadable: ‘The Black Cat’ and ‘The Tell-Tale Heart.” New Essays on Poe’s Major Tales . United States: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Poe, Allan. “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library, 1992. Web.

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The Tell-Tale Heart: Character Analysis Argumentative Essay Examples

Type of paper: Argumentative Essay

Topic: Psychology , Heart , Nature , Mind , Literature , Character , Police , Edgar Allan Poe

Words: 1000

Published: 01/29/2020

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‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ is one of Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous short stories. The story goes on to describe the murder of an old man by a man driven by his extreme insanity. Poe’s characters stand out and leave an ever-lasting mark on the minds of the innumerable readers. The narrator of the short story, ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’, recollects how he had killed an old man. He goes on to describe the story in first person narrative. How much of his description is true cannot be said and that makes him an unreliable narrator. He goes on chanting several times proclaiming his own sanity, a behavior bizarre enough. An engaged reader is bound to reason differently on account of this man’s behavior, logic and speech. From the very first sentence of the story, this man seems to be afraid. The jolting depiction of his state of mind very soon gets transformed into utter madness. He ardently goes on to claim of his fondness for the old man and that there can be no motive for killing him, except for his surmounting dislike of a cloudy film over one of his eyes. It actually seems that the narrator is unaware of the ‘real’ and ‘unreal’, living in his world of twisted perceived notions. The anonymity of this character symbolizes the universality of the weirdness. It looms over the mind like a specter and the reader is immersed much more into the intriguing narrative of the story. The narrator is emotionally unstable and hence this counters his claims of being a good judge of matters. His reactions are odd and do not comply with the standard expectations of the readers. His botheration about the vulture-like eye transcends his love for this old man and he finally murders him with premeditation. The act of killing brings a sense of accomplishment in this man. The policemen’s lack of suspicion signifies that the narrator himself had become unaware of his own mannerisms and surroundings. Being unable to maintain the distinction between the real and his inner thoughts, he misconstrues the mental disturbance for a physical one and the innocuous blabbering of the policemen seems to be malicious to him. However, all this while the narrator imagines that he has rightly translated all the events. Edgar Allan Poe, thus, suggests that irrationality of the mind roots from the belief in a person’s rational self. Ironically, his makes elevated proclamations describing him as too calm for being insane. But, it gets refuted by a noise that could be his heart beat. His unreliable nature makes it impossible for the reader to be certain if it is an actual sound, his imagination or something occult. The most reliable explanation can be that it was the sound of his own heart which he misconstrues as the heartbeat of the old man he had assassinated. The inability of distinguishing between parallels his lack of consciousness of his activities and he talks with the policemen. All these things expose his lapses in argument and thwart his claims of being sane. The character of the old man is much more mysterious that that of the narrator of the story. It might be due to the fact that the readers only get to see him through the perspective of the narrator. The man had a blue eye that the narrator was scared of. In the words of the narrator, the old man had no idea that he was going to be assassinated by the narrator for the fact that the narrator had treated him very cordially the week before. Though this claim cannot be substantiated with concrete proof, the old man’s leaving the bedroom door unlocked seems to point that only. He was not a naturally trusting man, as is evident from his fear of robbers. He, however, had a lot of trust on the narrator. It can be so that this man was extremely poor in judging characters as he had wrongly judged the narrator. It is evident from the narration that the old man’s senses had become dull with age. It was on the eighth night that he heard the narrator, apart from having almost no idea of the on-goings events around him. He is seriously incapable of showing any defense. It might be so that the narrator is craftily saying that he took the man as someone “mad”. This might have risen from the helplessly senile nature of the old man. Even thinking that the narrator could kill a man so tender with his ripe age makes the avid readers cringe. The alienation of the old man on account of his eye can be symbolic of the prevalent prejudices that bind the society in the shackles of evil and discriminate human beings on the parameter of physical “difference”. Poe is successful in stirring the minds of his avid readers with the bizarre and uncanny. The abnormality of the narrator meshes with the other characters and the readers are left flabbergasted at the end. Indeed, the character of the narrator in a plunge into the deep dark corners of human nature.

Works Cited

Broda, Anna. "Odd and Deviant Behaviour in Selected Short Stories by Edgar Allan Poe and Flannery O'Connor." Google Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2013. Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Tell-Tale Heart." Edgar Allan Poe: The Tell-Tale Heart. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2013. Fludernik, Monika. "An Introduction to Narratology." Google Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2013. Friedrichsen, Mike. "Suspense: Conceptualizations, Theoretical Analyses, and Empirical Explorations." Google Books. Ed. Peter Vorderer and Hans Jürgen Wulff. N.p., Ogden, Thomas. "Subjects of Analysis." Google Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2013. Silverman, Kenneth. "New Essays on Poe's Major Tales." Google Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 28. Mar. 2013.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — The Tell Tale Heart — The Narrator’s Insanity and Guilt in the Tell Tale Heart

The Narrator’s Insanity and Guilt in The Tell Tale Heart

• Categories: Guilt Literature Review The Tell Tale Heart

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Words: 732 |

Published: Dec 3, 2020

Words: 732 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Works Cited:

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• Cooke, L. (1982). Picasso's Guernica. The Burlington Magazine, 124(949), 304-315.
• Musciano, W. G. (2004). The painting as an expression of protest: Picasso's Guernica. The Social Studies, 95(2), 50-56.
• Preston, P. (2007). Guernica: The biography of a twentieth-century icon. Bloomsbury Publishing.
• Read, H. (1999). The Education of an Artist. New York: Norton.
• Goldscheider, L. (1983). The meaning of art. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
• Mallén, P. (2014). Beyond Guernica and the Spanish Civil War: Critical reflections on images of political violence. Journal of War & Culture Studies, 7(2), 140-152.
• Picasso, P. (1984). Picasso on art: A selection of views. Da Capo Press.
• Sandler, I. (2014). Art as political protest: Guernica fifty years later. Routledge.
• Wattenmaker, R. J., & Distel, A. (2000). Great French paintings from the Barnes Foundation: Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and Early Modern. New York: Knopf.

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Live Updates: Prosecutors Say Trump’s Attacks Are Threat to Trial

Prosecutors in Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial want him held in contempt for attacking witnesses and others close to the case, which centers on a hush-money payment to a porn star. Testimony is set to resume later Tuesday morning.

• Share full article

Jonah E. Bromwich and Ben Protess

Here’s the latest on the trial.

Manhattan prosecutors are urging the judge in the criminal case against Donald J. Trump to hold the former president in contempt of court for attacking witnesses and jurors in the landmark trial.

Jury selection in the case — on charges that Mr. Trump falsified records to conceal a sex scandal involving a porn star that could have derailed his 2016 campaign — had hardly begun when prosecutors accused Mr. Trump of violating a gag order.

The order, imposed by the judge overseeing the case, Juan M. Merchan, bars the former president from attacking witnesses, prosecutors, jurors and court staff, as well as their relatives.

Prosecutors said Mr. Trump violated it 11 times, both in his own statements and by reposting quotes and articles on social media, arguing that he risked inciting violence or harassment. Mr. Trump has directed many of his attacks at a key prosecution witness, Michael D. Cohen, his former fixer, as well as the porn star, Stormy Daniels.

In court on Tuesday, one of the prosecutors, Christopher Conroy, rattled off Mr. Trump’s various statements that may have crossed a line, including calling Mr. Cohen and Ms. Daniels “sleaze bags.” He also noted that Mr. Trump last week reposted an attack on the jury pool, and that one juror who had already been seated subsequently asked to be excused from the panel.

“What happened here was exactly what this order was meant to prevent and the defendant doesn’t care,” Mr. Conroy said.

The statements pose a very real “threat” to the proceedings, Mr. Conroy said. Witnesses, he added, “rightly fear being subject to similar vitriol.”

The prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office previously asked Justice Merchan to fine Mr. Trump $1,000 per violation, and Mr. Conroy said on Tuesday they were not seeking jail time — although he believed that is what Mr. Trump might have been angling for.

Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, argued that Mr. Trump’s posts were political in nature, and did not violate the order because he was simply responding to “a barrage of political attacks” from Mr. Cohen and others. But Justice Merchan appeared to bristle at that claim, saying he did not want to get into “interpreting and reading between the lines” of Mr. Trump’s posts.

The judge, whose daughter has been among Mr. Trump’s targets, might not rule immediately.

The case against Mr. Trump, the first criminal trial of an American president, debuted to a newly seated jury on Monday, as both sides delivered opening statements that offered dueling visions of Mr. Trump and the evidence against him. While a prosecutor accused the former president of orchestrating a “criminal conspiracy and a coverup,” Mr. Trump’s lawyer proclaimed that “President Trump is innocent.”

Here’s what to know for Day 6 of the trial:

On Monday, the prosecution began questioning its first witness, David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer, who buried damaging stories about Mr. Trump as he mounted his first campaign for president. Prosecutors are expected to continue questioning Mr. Pecker after the gag order hearing.

In an opening statement on Monday, the prosecution began by accusing Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohen and Mr. Pecker of plotting to bury negative stories about Mr. Trump ahead of the 2016 election. At the center of the case is a $130,000 hush-money payment by Mr. Cohen to Ms. Daniels. Prosecutors say Mr. Trump falsified records to cover up his reimbursement to Mr. Cohen. Here’s a look back at Monday.

Mr. Pecker, the first witness called in the case, is set to return to the witness stand on Tuesday. In roughly a half-hour of testimony on Monday, he described a tabloid technique known as “catch and kill,” in which publications buy the rights to stories and then withhold them so that they never become public. Read more about him.

Before opening statements, Justice Merchan delivered a crucial ruling on what subjects prosecutors can question Mr. Trump about should he decide to take the stand in his own defense. The judge said he would allow them to question him about several recent losses he suffered in unrelated civil trials, including a fraud case this year in which he was found liable for conspiring to manipulate his net worth and was penalized $454 million.

Maggie Haberman

Justice Merchan is now pushing Todd Blanche to do a forensic accounting of how reposts happen in Trump’s world. “It’s not passive,” the judge finally says.

Todd Blanche says Trump is entitled to complain about “two systems of justice.” “There’s two systems of justice in this courtroom? That’s what you’re saying?” Justice Merchan says.

Justice Juan M. Merchan

Presiding Judge

Joshua Steinglass

Todd Blanche

Trump Lawyer

Christopher Conroy

David Pecker

Former Publisher of The National Enquirer

Michael Cohen

Former Trump Lawyer and “Fixer”

Advertisement

Jonah Bromwich

There’s a real similarity between the opening statements we saw yesterday and the arguments about the alleged gag order violations today: Again, prosecutors have an overarching narrative, saying that Trump willfully violated their order. Blanche is responding to the allegations one by one, and the judge, for now, isn’t having it.

Justice Merchan is basically taking on, one by one, Trump's favored social media strategies. One is constantly claiming something was “just found.” In this particular case, the subject was Stormy Daniels’ early 2018 statement denying having had a sexual encounter with Trump, which she has since disavowed. “LOOK WHAT WAS JUST FOUND!” Trump said in an April 10 Truth Social post. “I need to know what is true,” Justice Merchan says.

The judge loses patience with Todd Blanche, Trump's lawyer. “I’m asking the questions, OK,” he says. “Im going to decide whether your client is in contempt or not, so please don’t turn it around.” Blanche says in a higher-pitched voice that the prosecutors got as much time as they want. Justice Merchan makes a distinction, saying the prosecutors were answering his questions.

Kate Christobek

During the scold, Trump turned to another one of his lawyers, Emil Bove, and whispered a comment.

We’ll try to decode Todd Blanche’s attacks further, though they are confusing even in the room. He says that a post from Michael Avenatti, which caused Trump to launch into an attack on Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen, was a political argument, about speech not in the case but on social media and in interviews. Thus, Blanche is saying, Trump’s response is not in fact an attack on witnesses but a continuation of that political discussion. This is a hard pill for Justice Merchan to swallow, clearly.

The legal and political strategies by the Trump team have been intertwined since the first indictment. And Blanche’s argument brings that into stark relief.

It’s fascinating to see a lawyer for Trump try to separate out politics from legal proceedings. The Trump era, of course, has been marked by the opposite sort of context collapse: With Trump, everything is politics. That’s why this argument may not work.

Blanche is trying to get his client out of hot water by seeking to reframe Trump’s statements about Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels as responses to “a barrage of political attacks.”

Merchan says that he doesn’t want to get into “interpreting and reading between the lines” of Trump’s posts as Blanche continues to push the point that Trump’s attacks are political, and not specifically related to the case, despite being about likely witnesses.

Blanche is struggling to make his argument, continually getting interrupted by the judge.

Todd Blanche, one of Trump's lawyers, is responding for the defense. He says Trump knows what the gag order allows him to do, and there was “no willful violation” of it. He again argues, as he did in his opening statement, that there's nothing to see here.

Blanche is arguing that nothing can be seen devoid of political context when it comes to Trump.

Conroy says prosecutors will not seek jail for now, even though Trump seems to be “angling” for that.

While Trump has made a show of daring prosecutors to jail him, there are few Trump advisers who think he actually wants that or would welcome the reality of being put in a cell.

New York State’s criminal contempt law permits a $1,000 fine and jail time of up to 30 days for each violation of the gag order. And Conroy is asking the judge to warn Trump that he could face custody.

Conroy now focuses on Trump’s defense that “reposts” aren’t his own words. Trump has used a version of this defense politically as well since 2016.

Conroy says that Trump “is doing nothing less than knowingly and willfully, that is intentionally, breaching the crystal clear, unequivocal lines set by this court.”

Conroy is talking about Trump’s seeking to use politics as a defense, saying it “makes no sense,” eviscerating the clear language and meaning of the gag order. “There’s no indication that his claim that he’s responding to attacks is anything more than an after-the-fact justification,” Conroy says.

Jesse McKinley

"He knows about the order, he knows what he’s not allowed to do, and he does it anyway," Conroy says, adding: "It’s willful."

Throwing a "MAGA" into a post doesn’t make it political, Conroy says, dismissing the idea that Trump's comments fall under the category of protected political speech. It may make it more ominous, Conroy adds.

Conroy says that Trump “violates the order when he posts about known witnesses or reasonably forseeable witnesses,” and “violates the order when he posts about a juror or prospective juror.”

And finally, Conroy says Trump violated the gag order when on Truth Social, he quoted the Fox News commentator Jesse Watters denigrating prospective jurors as "undercover liberal activists.” Prosecutors have flagged this as the most serious of the violations and Conroy does so again, calling it “very troubling.”

Conroy points to the timing of the post, last Wednesday evening. The next morning, Juror #2 came into court and asked to be excused. This upset Justice Merchan. He complimented the juror after excusing her, saying she would have done a good job.

Wesley Parnell

Watters also shared personal details about the jurors in his segment. "We ended up losing a juror," Conroy says. "What happened here was exactly what this order was meant to prevent and the defendant doesn’t care.”

Conroy, reminding Justice Merchan of the procedural history here, notes that a second order came after Trump “ratcheted up attacks on family members.” That impersonal language hides something the judge knows well: Those attacks were made on his own family members, including his daughter.

Conroy is ticking through Trump's alleged gag order violations, including one in which he thanked Stormy Daniels’s disgraced lawyer, Michael Avenatti, for criticizing Michael Cohen. Conroy also describes how Trump called Cohen and Daniels “sleaze bags.”

Conroy is now describing five more examples, all versions of the same post, in which Trump shared a New York Post article about Michael Cohen and quoted its headline: “A serial perjurer will try to prove an old misdemeanor against Trump in an embarrassment for the New York legal system.”

Trump is looking ahead in the judge’s direction as Conroy ticks through these alleged violations. As social media posts of his are read into the record, his face twitches slightly.

It's striking listening to Christopher Conroy call for Justice Merchan to do something that could make Trump stop. His comments evoke the lawyer Roberta Kaplan’s closing arguments in Trump's defamation trial, where she asked the jury how much money it would take to get Trump to stop defaming E. Jean Carroll.

A prosecutor, Christopher Conroy, begins to detail his team’s argument on the gag order. He says each of the 10 Trump posts in question violated the order, and that eight of them were on Truth Social. Two were on his official campaign website.

Conroy says that these violations pose a very real “threat” to the proceedings, having an “undertow” effect on witnesses and making them afraid. The witnesses, he says, “rightly fear being subject to similar vitriol.”

As expected, Conroy says Trump's attacks on Michael Cohen in the hallway outside the courtroom yesterday again violated the order. So that’s 11 violations prosecutors say he commited.

Susanne Craig

Security officers have removed a member of the public from the overflow room. The man was verbally sparring with officers for some time, first complaining he wasn’t allowed access to the main court room. Officers explained to him access is on a first-come first-serve basis, which seemed to calm him down. Then he insisted on standing at the back of the courtroom so he could get a better view of the monitor broadcasting the trial. “This is not fair,” he kept saying. He was ultimately asked to leave.

Court officers have come back into the overflow room to grab a pair of metal handcuffs, likely for the unruly member of the public, who was removed.

The prosecutors have returned. Trump, who was isolated and alone at the defense table, in what is becoming a familiar image at this trial, has also been rejoined by his lawyers. The judge is back on the bench and says that two matters are now in the record.

It appears that the two matters were the two separate attempts that prosecutors have made to see Trump held in contempt of court. They say he’s violated the gag order 10 times.

The judge is in, and we are underway.

The lawyers and the judge left the courtroom almost immediately after the session began. We do not know why.

Sidebars, where the defense and prosecution meet quietly with a judge at the bench, are a fairly common occurrence in criminal trials. But this appears to be a meeting in the judge’s chamber, signaling a need for additional privacy.

It is striking seeing Trump sit alone at the defense table, the courtroom behind him packed with reporters and other observers.

Trump enters the courtroom, licking his lips.

Matthew Haag and Alan Feuer

New York’s court system is publishing daily transcripts of Trump’s trial.

If you want to follow Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial in detail but can’t make it to the Lower Manhattan courthouse in person, you can still read every word of the proceedings.

The New York State Court system will publish a transcript of each day’s court action by the end of the following day on its website. The transcripts can be found here under People v Donald J. Trump (Criminal).

The trial is not televised nor is there live audio, so the transcripts provide the only way to read what is said in the courtroom, word for word.

The court system does not normally release daily transcripts for public consumption and in most cases, seeing transcripts for a court proceeding can be costly. But the court system’s chief administrative judge, Joseph A. Zayas , believed it was the right thing to do.

“This measure is in the interest of the public good and aligns with the court system’s commitment to judicial transparency and its ongoing efforts to enhance public access to, and understanding of, the courts and justice system,” said the judge, who made the decision to publish the transcripts.

In addition to the transcripts, the court website also includes various documents from the hush-money trial, including the 42 questions asked of prospective jurors during jury selection. The site also includes some documents from Mr. Trump’s civil fraud case as well as the previous criminal fraud case against Allen Weisselberg , the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization.

Jesse McKinley and Kate Christobek

Five takeaways from the fifth day of Trump’s criminal trial.

Monday marked another key moment in the criminal trial of Donald J. Trump: opening statements, during which the former president listened quietly to the prosecution’s allegations of crimes, and the defense’s counterargument that he was a simple man, wrongly accused.

The jury that will decide Mr. Trump’s case concentrated intently on the statements, which began the presentation of what will be weeks of testimony and other evidence, all in a tense courtroom in Lower Manhattan.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee once more, Mr. Trump, 77, is charged with falsifying 34 business records in an attempt to cover up a payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, in the days before the 2016 election. Ms. Daniels, who may testify, says that she and Mr. Trump had a sexual encounter in 2006, a claim the former president denies.

Mr. Trump has also denied the 34 felony charges, calling them orchestrated by Democrats; if convicted, the former president could face probation or up to four years in prison.

Here are five takeaways from Mr. Trump’s fifth day on trial:

The prosecution has a big story to tell.

The charges faced by Mr. Trump may sound bland — “falsifying business records” doesn’t really set the heart racing — but the prosecution made clear on Monday that it plans on painting a much broader picture.

Matthew Colangelo, a prosecutor, laid out in his opening statement a tale that touched on tabloid journalism , tawdry affairs and covertly recorded phone calls . Jurors will likely be told about events inside fancy hotel rooms, Trump Tower and even the Oval Office. And the stakes? The presidency.

All that suggests that the case will keep jurors wide-awake during the six or so weeks it is projected to take. Indeed, when asked if they wanted paper and pens to take notes, more than half of the people in the jury box (12 jurors and six alternates) raised their hands.

Who Are Key Players in the Trump Manhattan Criminal Trial?

The first criminal trial of former President Donald J. Trump is underway. Take a closer look at central figures related to the case.

The defense wants to destroy prosecution witnesses.

Mr. Trump’s lead lawyer, Todd Blanche, used his opening statement to cast Mr. Trump’s actions leading to this case as run-of-the-mill business, and said that Mr. Trump is defending himself at trial, just as “any of us would do.”

He argued that the use of a nondisclosure agreement — the document Ms. Daniels signed after receiving the payment — was typical among the wealthy and the famous and “nothing illegal.” He continued that there was nothing wrong with trying to influence an election, adding: “It’s called democracy.”

Mr. Blanche also attacked Mr. Cohen, a former lawyer and fixer for Mr. Trump. He said Mr. Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance crimes in 2018, was a “criminal” who “can’t be trusted.” He added that Ms. Daniels was “biased” against Mr. Trump and made a living off her story about the sexual encounter.

He called the heart of the prosecution case just “34 pieces of paper” that don’t involve Mr. Trump.

Trump was muted during the abbreviated day in court.

On Mr. Trump’s way into the courtroom on Monday, he addressed reporters for about three minutes and blasted a range of perceived enemies, including New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, and the judge in a recent civil fraud case that resulted in a $454 million judgment against him.

But Mr. Trump’s behavior during opening statements reflected that he understood the gravity of the moment.

Mr. Trump made no outbursts during the prosecution’s opening statement, although he occasionally showed displeasure: He shook his head slightly at arguments that he orchestrated a scheme to corrupt the presidential election and then more strenuously when prosecutors said he was guilty of felonies.

During his own side’s opening statement, Mr. Trump sat largely motionless and expressionless watching his lawyer Mr. Blanche. Mr. Trump’s behavior was muted compared with his volatility during past Manhattan court appearances.

But at the conclusion of the trial day, Mr. Trump took his preferred spot in front of a television camera in the hallway, and spoke for more than nine minutes, attacking the prosecutor’s case — once again — as unfair.

David Pecker used to live on celebrity news. Now, he is the news.

Prosecutors’ first witness was David Pecker, the longtime publisher of The National Enquirer . He ambled to the stand and promptly gave a lesson in the ways of tabloid journalism, including the purchasing of articles — anything more than $10,000, he had to approve — and the significance of putting a famous face right out front.

“The only thing that was important is the cover of a magazine,” Mr. Pecker testified.

In about 30 minutes of testimony, Mr. Pecker also laid out trade secrets on sourcing, saying hotel workers and limo drivers could be a font of information on the rich and famous.

He seemed at ease: laughing at a prosecutor’s jokes, and sometimes directly addressing the jury just a few feet away.

We’re moving right along.

Over the past five trial days, the judge overseeing the case, Juan M. Merchan, has shown that he is eager to keep this trial on schedule. He seems serious about keeping his word to the jurors that the trial will last six weeks.

On Monday, truncated by a juror’s dental emergency and the Passover holiday, he decided to start with the first witness — Mr. Pecker — despite having only half an hour left on his schedule.

On Tuesday, the court will first consider a prosecution motion to hold Mr. Trump in contempt over recent comments that they say violated a gag order meant to keep him from attacking participants in the trial and their families.

Then, Mr. Pecker will continue on the stand, probably diving deeper into the “catch-and-kill” scheme used to buy up — and cover up — unflattering stories, a central element of the prosecution’s narrative.

Court will end early again, at 2 p.m., for further observance of Passover and then will have its weekly Wednesday break.

But there is little indication that as the weeks pass, Justice Merchan will let the pace slacken.

Michael Rothfeld

A look at how tabloids used ‘catch-and-kill’ to trade on the secrets of celebrities.

“Catch-and-kill” is a term coined by old-time tabloid editors for buying the exclusive rights to stories, or “catching” them, for the specific purpose of ensuring the information never becomes public. That’s the “killing” part.

Why would anyone want to spend money on a story that it never intends to publish? In the world of tabloid journalism, where ethical lines are blurry, deciding what to publish and why is often a calculus that covers favors doled out and chits called in.

David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer, who also oversaw other tabloids such as Star and lifestyle publications such as Men’s Fitness, was a master of the technique , according to people who have worked for him.

In 2003, Mr. Pecker’s company, American Media Inc., bought several muscle magazines founded by a mentor of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the bodybuilding legend and movie star. When Mr. Schwarzenegger, who was often featured in those magazines, jumped into the recall election to replace California’s governor, Mr. Pecker ordered his staff to buy up negative stories about him in order to protect his investment, former employees said.

Staff members called it “the David Pecker Project.” American Media paid $20,000 to a former mistress of Mr. Schwarzenegger so that she would not speak about their affair — though news of it had previously been published. The company paid another $1,000 to her friend and $2,000 to a man who had a video of Mr. Schwarzenegger dancing lewdly in Rio de Janeiro 20 years earlier. Mr. Schwarzenegger was elected governor.

Mr. Pecker’s publications made deals with other celebrities as well, though not always for money. He traded away dirt about the golfer Tiger Woods in exchange for an exclusive interview in Men’s Fitness in 2007, according to people with knowledge of that episode.

And, according to the prosecutors in the Manhattan trial of Donald J. Trump, Mr. Pecker employed “catch-and-kill” tactics in the 2016 presidential election, paying a doorman and a Playboy model to suppress negative stories about Mr. Trump and boost the candidacy of his longtime associate.

Who is David Pecker, the trial’s first witness?

The first witness in Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial is David Pecker, who was the publisher of The National Enquirer, and had traded favors with Mr. Trump since the 1990s.

Mr. Pecker, who was sometimes referred to as the “tabloid king,” had long used his publications to curry favor with Mr. Trump and other celebrities, in exchange for tips or for business reasons. Staff members called Mr. Trump, like other favored stars who were off limits, an “F.O.P.” — “Friend of Pecker.”

Mr. Trump and Mr. Pecker, along with Mr. Trump’s former fixer Michael D. Cohen, hatched a plan in August 2015 to boost his upstart presidential campaign, prosecutors say. The former Trump allies are each expected to take a turn on the witness stand, giving testimony that could help make him the first president convicted of a felony.

Prosecutors for Alvin L. Bragg , the Manhattan district attorney, will try to show that the hush money payment to a porn star at the center of the trial was part of a larger effort to suppress negative news about Mr. Trump to sway the election. That scheme, they will contend, includes two other deals, both involving Mr. Pecker.

Mr. Trump had announced his presidential campaign in June 2015. The plan the men laid out two months later was simple, according to court documents, interviews with people involved in the events or familiar with them, private communications and other records.

Mr. Pecker would use The Enquirer to publish positive stories about Mr. Trump’s campaign and negative stories about his rivals. He would alert Mr. Trump, through Mr. Cohen, when The Enquirer learned of stories that might threaten Mr. Trump. The Enquirer could buy the rights to those stories in order to suppress them, a practice known in the tabloid world as “catch and kill.”

In late 2015, Mr. Pecker’s company paid $30,000 to suppress a claim by a former doorman at a Trump building who said he had heard Mr. Trump fathered a child out of wedlock — a rumor that was apparently untrue.

Then in August 2016, The Enquirer’s parent company paid $150,000 to a former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, to keep her account of an affair with Mr. Trump quiet. Two months later, Mr. Pecker and The Enquirer’s editor helped Mr. Cohen negotiate a $130,000 hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels, the former porn star who also said she had sex with Mr. Trump. He has denied both women’s claims.

Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance crimes in 2018.

The Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc., made a deal that year to avoid federal prosecution, acknowledging that it had illegally tried to influence the election .

Meet the team defending Donald J. Trump in his criminal trial.

Donald J. Trump has assembled a team of defense lawyers with extensive experience representing people charged with white-collar crimes to defend him against the charges filed by the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Some have worked for Mr. Trump for years. Others are more recent additions, but are involved in the former president’s broader legal defense, also representing him in other criminal cases.

Here’s a look at Mr. Trump’s defense team:

Mr. Blanche started representing Mr. Trump last year, leaving a prestigious position as a partner at Wall Street’s oldest law firm to take him on as a client. He is also representing Mr. Trump in his federal classified documents case in Florida and his federal election interference case in Washington.

Mr. Blanche has also represented Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, as well as Boris Epshteyn, an adviser to Mr. Trump. Before turning to private practice, Mr. Blanche was a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, where he supervised violent-crime cases.

Susan Necheles

Ms. Necheles has been a lawyer for Mr. Trump since 2021 and represented the Trump Organization during its criminal tax fraud trial in Manhattan. The business was convicted of 17 felonies and ordered by Justice Juan M. Merchan to pay the maximum penalty of $1.6 million.

Ms. Necheles previously represented defendants in major organized-crime and public-corruption cases, including Venero Mangano, the Genovese crime family underboss who was known as Benny Eggs.

Mr. Bove, the newest addition to Mr. Trump’s legal team, is a legal partner to Mr. Blanche. He is a former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York who turned to private practice and now represents defendants charged with white-collar crimes.

Gedalia Stern

Mr. Stern is a law partner to Ms. Necheles and also defended the Trump Organization in its criminal tax-fraud trial. He has previous experience representing clients charged with bribery, fraud and conspiracy.

If Trump testifies, he can be grilled about cases he lost and gag order violations.

The judge in Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial ruled on Monday morning that prosecutors could ask the former president about a range of previous cases that he has lost, as well as past violations of gag orders, in the event that he decides to testify in his defense.

Among other cases, the ruling by the judge, Juan M. Merchan, would allow prosecutors to question Mr. Trump about the civil fraud case brought by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, in which the former president was found to have inflated his net worth to obtain favorable loans. That case resulted in a $454 million judgment against Mr. Trump .

Justice Merchan will also allow the Manhattan district attorney’s office — which brought the case against Mr. Trump — to question him about civil cases brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll. Those cases found that Mr. Trump was liable for sexually abusing and defaming Ms. Carroll in the first instance and for defamation in the second. (Justice Merchan did not mention the sexual abuse finding, only the defamation, in his ruling regarding the Carroll cases on Monday.)

Justice Merchan will also let prosecutors ask about Mr. Trump’s attack on a law clerk in a civil fraud case , in violation of a gag order, as well as a 2018 decision that led to the dissolution of the Donald J. Trump Foundation to resolve a case brought by the New York attorney general at the time , Barbara Underwood, over financial irregularities.

The former president suggested in early April that he would testify in the criminal trial , saying that prosecutors “have no case.” That said, Mr. Trump has promised to testify in previous cases only to back out, and Justice Merchan’s decision could change his thinking on such a maneuver.

Justice Merchan said that, in the event that Mr. Trump did testify, he would give jurors “careful and specific” instructions about the scope of prosecutors’ queries, adding that he had “greatly curtailed” what specifics could be the target of questions.

However, Justice Merchan warned Mr. Trump that his ruling was “a shield and not a sword” and that the former president’s testimony could open “the door to questioning that has otherwise been excluded.”

Mr. Trump is being tried on charges that he falsified business records to cover up a hush-money payment to a porn star ahead of the 2016 election. He has denied the charges.