Poe’s Narrators/ Unreliable Narrators
In Edgar Allan Poe’s stories there sometimes tends to be an unreliable narrator in the story. We can see that in his 3 stories “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “That Black Cat”, and “The Cask of Amontillado”. Those stories show characteristics of an unreliable narrator. We can mostly see it in “The Tell-Tale Heart”. Everyone of Poe’s stories has a gruesome and traumatic ending which add on to that insane and unreliable sense. In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrator is a psychotic person. In “The Black Cat”, the narrator is a violet alcoholic. In “The Cast of Amontillado”, the narrator is a killer. The fact that they do all these terrible things to people make them an unreliable narrator. Even if the narrators didn’t do the terrible things they said they did, that would still make them untrustworthy and unreliable because then their lying to their readers. When a story has an unreliable narrator, you find that their narrating is not what …show more content…
But that doesn’t mean that he’s trustworthy. He is a wealthy man that decides to attend a party with other wealthy people attending also. One of the narrator’s frenemies insult his family name which get our narrator, Montresor, angry and he wants revenge. That is his motive to kill him. Montresor decides to take his frenemy back to his house. Montresor lives over the catacombs so they go down there where no one is and the entire time he lures him in more and more with expensive, fine wine. When Montresor can get him in this small space in the wall, he chains him up and then puts a wall in front of the space to cover him and lock him in there forever. No one ever finds him, and Montresor was successful with his murder because his frenemy, Fortunato, does eventually die that night. Even of Montresor didn’t necessarily lie to us from what I know, he still killed someone and any narrator that kills someone and is unrelatable is
In Edgar Allan Poe’s stories there sometimes tends to be an unreliable narrator in the story. We can see that in his 3 stories “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “That Black Cat”, and “The Cask of Amontillado”. Those stories show characteristics of an unreliable narrator. We can mostly see it in “The Tell-Tale Heart”. Everyone of Poe’s stories has a gruesome and traumatic ending which add on to that insane and unreliable sense. In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrator is a psychotic person. In “The Black Cat”, the narrator is a violet alcoholic. In “The Cast of Amontillado”, the narrator is a killer. The fact that they do all these terrible things to people make them an unreliable narrator. Even if the narrators didn’t do the terrible things they said they did, that would still make them untrustworthy and unreliable because then their lying to their readers. When a story has an unreliable narrator, you find that their narrating is not what …show more content…
But that doesn’t mean that he’s trustworthy. He is a wealthy man that decides to attend a party with other wealthy people attending also. One of the narrator’s frenemies insult his family name which get our narrator, Montresor, angry and he wants revenge. That is his motive to kill him. Montresor decides to take his frenemy back to his house. Montresor lives over the catacombs so they go down there where no one is and the entire time he lures him in more and more with expensive, fine wine. When Montresor can get him in this small space in the wall, he chains him up and then puts a wall in front of the space to cover him and lock him in there forever. No one ever finds him, and Montresor was successful with his murder because his frenemy, Fortunato, does eventually die that night. Even of Montresor didn’t necessarily lie to us from what I know, he still killed someone and any narrator that kills someone and is unrelatable is