Edgar Allan Poe: Unreliable Narrative Analysis

1407 Words6 Pages

Edgar Allan Poe had a tough life. When he was 2 years old his mother separated him and his siblings from his father. After his mother died he was given to another family. He started alcohol and gambling; therefore, he became in debt and had to leave his school. These tough events led Poe to gothic themes of death, lost love. Poe’s way of writing gothic short stories of mystery and terror mixes these elements and he gives various layers of meaning in his narratives. He uses monstrous power of language in his stories and he is known with his ability to persuade his readers. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the unreliable narrating of Edgar Allan Poe in “The Cask of Amantillado”.
Edgar Allan Poe is described as “... being low in agreeableness and conscientiousness since he was argumentative, untrusting, and lacked self-control” (Erica Giammarco 5). Poe 's unreliable and lack of self-control ways can be seen in the stories’ protagonist Montresor. This story is about revenge which Montresor takes from his friend Fortunato because of the insults he bears. In the story Montresor tries to persuade his readers as if he speaks the truth. This can be …show more content…

As it is said before this papers intention is to show unreliable narrating of Montresor. All the quotations are taken from “The Cask of Amantillado” is used to show how an unreliable person Montresor is. It should not be forgotten Montresor tells this story a half of century after he buries his friend and he is the only person who knows the story. Furthermore first narrator is used in the story, so that we know the Fortunato only from Montresor’s eyes and to make us believe him he uses persuasive words and a lot of irony. When it is looked in a different way, even though Montresor tries to provide an authority on readers, his unreliable way can be easily understood by the language play he

Open Document