Cask of Amontillado and Unreliable Narrator

Mental Disorder and Poe's Unreliable Narrator

Edgar Allan Poe is most known for his fascinating tales of the macabre and grotesque. Many of Poe's short tales are told from an unreliable perspective in which the narrator tells the events that have occurred as he interprets them. Furthermore, these tales of the macabre often explore the concepts of paranoia and murder. These themes are prevalent in "The Cask of Amontillado," the tale of Montressor, a man who lures his supposed friend, Fortunato, to his death because of an unknown slight against him. Several elements make the narrator a fascinating and unreliable character including his psychological state and the imp of the perverse; unlike in "The Imp of the Perverse" and "The Tell-Tale Heart" in which the narrators accept they are inflicted with some sort of mental disorder, in "The Cask of Amontillado," Montressor is not...
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