Abner Snopes and Montresor; Two Villainous Characters with Two Different Endings
What is a villain? A villain can be defined as an evil character in a story that tends to have a negative effect on the other characters in the story. They are typically cruel and malicious and often consumed with a ruthless conviction to carry out a certain wickedness or crime. Sometimes they may be portrayed as having some redeeming quality but, at the end of the day part of being a truly great and heinous villain is doing something that most people would never dream of doing. In William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” we are introduced to two villainous characters, Abner Snopes and Montresor. In comparison both characters undoubtedly meet the definition of a villain. However, in contract each character displays a different flavor of villainy with entirely different outcomes to their crimes. In “Barn Burning”, William Faulkner’s villain, Abner Snopes, can best be described as a sociopath. Generally speaking, a sociopath is one who tends to be both impulsive and erratic in their behavior. They can become agitated and angered easily and, they tend to have
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For example, we know from reading the story that Montresor and Fortunato were once friends. This can be confirmed as Montresor recounts how he encountered his friend “one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season” (Poe 739). This can be further exemplified as throughout the course of the story Montresor more than once refers to Fortunato as his friend or dear friend. However though, from the onset, we come to realize that this friendship is very shallow and is no more as Montresor states “the thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge” (Poe 739). We come to realize very quickly that Montresor plans to kill his friend over an