Almost, if not all, of the narrators in Edgar Allan Poe’s stories are unreliable. Georgetown University defines an unreliable narrator as someone who “typically displays characteristics or tendencies that indicate a lack of credibility or understanding of the story” and this could depend on “age, mental disability or personal involvement”. The narrator then ends up giving the reader “either incomplete or inaccurate information as a result of these conditions.” Some of the unreliable narrators in Poe’s stories are the creeper in The Telltale Heart, Montresor in The Cask of Amontillado, and the murderer in The Black Cat. They are all clinically insane, as they feel no remorse for any of their actions, and think nothing of what they did. They …show more content…
The alcohol factor doesn’t affect the way he acts, but it does affect the way he perceives things. In the story, there is a man (the narrator) who has a cat that he loves very much. However, he begins drinking a lot, and soon the cat begins to annoy him. One night, in a drunk rage, he grabbed the cat and cut its eye out. A few days later, he hangs the cat from a tree. He finds another cat later on and claims it as his own, but ends up almost killing it with an axe, but his wife stops him. Out of anger of his wife stopping him, he murders her. He then hides her body in the wall and accidentally walls the cat up with it. When the police come to interrogate a few days after, he covers his deed up nicely, but the cat begins meowing in the wall and the man gets caught. He thinks that, when he hung his cat, he did it out of love (6). The shocking part is, he admits to regretting it and crying at the loss of his cat. He says this on page 6, “One morning, in cold blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; - hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; - hung it because I knew it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offense, - hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin - a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it - if such a thing were …show more content…
He’s crazy, like the rest of them. In the story, the narrator, named Montresor, has an acquaintance named Fortunato whom he has been insulted so many times by that he vowed revenge. The most acceptable form of revenge, he thought, was murder. He planned it so intricately and carried it out so carefully that it worked out exactly his way. He began his plan by getting Fortunato alone and drunk, and telling him he had bought a very fine and expensive wine called Amontillado, but he wasn’t sure if it was genuine. Fortunato, being a wine expert, offered to confirm to Montresor if the wine was Amontillado. Montresor then used reverse psychology, saying that he could ask another friend of his, Luchesi, about the wine. He did this over and over again, intriguing Fortunato more and more as he led him into the catacombs under his house. He also uses reverse psychology in telling Fortunato that there is nitre all over his catacombs’ walls, and that Fortunato will get sicker than he already is from it. This also intrigues him more, and they keep going. Montresor also had made sure that he told his servants that he would be out all night and to absolutely not leave, but he knew that as soon as he was gone, they would leave (68). This would also be a good backup, because if the police ever came to investigate him, they wouldn’t think that someone who told his servants to stay home would bring anyone there to kill
Montresor is a man who feels pride in himself and in his family, so when Fortunato—an acquaintance of Montresor— “venture[s] upon insult,” Montresor “vow[s] revenge” against him (1). Montresor hastily decides that he must kill Fortunato, even though his use of the word “venture” implies that Fortunato had not yet insulted him, but nearly did. Montresor’s impulsive need for revenge causes him to formulate a plan to murder his acquaintance. He keeps Fortunato intoxicated by “presenting him…[with] wine,” he “fetter[s] him to the granite,” and he “plaster[s] up… [a wall of] new masonry” to trap Fortunato in the catacombs (39, 71, 89). All of these acts are signs that the need for revenge has made Fortunato insane. A person who has any sense of morals would not commit crimes such as Montresor’s. His impetuous decision to exact revenge caused him to lose his
During the carnival season’s evening, Montresor discovers Fortunato and invites him to go for a sample of sherry, which he recently procured and wishes to affirm as Amontillado. Fortunato is astonished and energized, so when Montresor recommends that Fortunato could be excessively busy and that Montresor may have Luchesi taste it rather, Fortunato put-down Luchesi's ability with wines and demands going with Montresor to the vaults to taste the Amontillado. Montresor offers a token challenge, saying that the vaults are brimming with nitre and will bother Fortunato's cold. By insisting him, Montresor puts on a veil of dark silk and a shroud and leads Fortunato to his home.
Montresor knows Fortunato’s greatest weakness which is his love for wine and uses it to draw him to his own death (Poe). He tells Fortunato of a special wine called Amontillado, making Fortunato hunger for the drink. Montresor leads him to his wine cellar and drugs him along the way. As Fortunato coughs on the way due to the dampness in the air, Montresor pretends to care and insists on turning around, but Fortunato refuses saying, “ The
When Montresor told him about the Amontillado, a type of drink, the desire to drink the wine sparked. Fortunato wanted to be the one to taste it because he said, “Luchesi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry” he said that he was the one to go ahead and try it (533). When they were in the carnival Fortunato was eager to try the wine he grabbed Montresor and said, “Come, let us go” (533). Fortunato’s ambition to try the wine was so big that he would not let anything get in his way not even his illness, “Let us go, nevertheless. The cold is merely nothing.
In the beginning of the story, Edgar Poe stated “From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them.” The narrator is telling us how he was always known for his tenderness nature and his love for animals, yet he abused and killed his pet cat, Pluto, who showed nothing but affection towards him, and he killed his wife by “accidentally” stabbing her repeatedly with an axe.
He volunteered to go into the catacombs to taste the amontillado wine. The cough he had prevented him from asking any questions about why he had to go into the catacombs in order to get the wine because any wine taster could tell you that wine would not be stored there. Fortunato is drunk, so it interferes with his mindset to understand exactly what is going on clearly. “‘My friend, no. It is not the engagement, but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted.
Fortunato insulted the family of Montresor and that’s when Montresor decided to do something about it. In the reading Edgar Allan Poe states, “But he had one great weakness: he liked to drink good wine, and indeed he drank much of it.” The fact that Fortunato loved wine, gave Montresor the best approach to trick him into the family’s wine cellar. Montresor was a smart man and knew exactly what to do, so that Fortunato would not suspect anything. Montresor’s approach was to inform Fortunato that he had Amontillado wine
Carefully, cautiously the Montresor plotted precisely how he would exact revenge upon Fortunato. Much time and great energy was devoted to this plan, selecting a time that would be best: during carnival when the town would be celebratory, his servants apt to run off and join the celebration, when the two could silently disappear without notice or question. No detail is forgotten; he allows for no deterrents. He follows through with such a confidence that never does he stumble or hesitate in carrying out his plan. The Montresor indicates that he had never given. To continue with this ploy, he even goes so far as to express false concern for Fortunato as they pass through the catacombs. Blaming the nitre and damp, the Montresor suggests that they turn back as not to compromise Fortunato’s ill health, though he has no intent of doing so. Never once until the very end did Fortunato have cause to suspect that there were any foul plans afoot.
There are various types of unreliable narrators, each of them having distinct characteristics limiting them from supplying the reader with adequate or completely true information. In the short story, “The Black Cat,” Poe delineates the first person narrator as an insane man who has difficulty perceiving his actions as what they are, making him unreliable. These occurrences pose questions for the reader regarding the legitimacy of what the narrator says. Nevertheless, the man in whose perspective “The Black Cat” is told, is unreliable due to his lack of recognizing the severity of his actions, his questionable sanity, and his succeeding reactions from his doings which are startling to the reader. Initially, the narrator in
Due to this grave insult, Montresor has vowed to seek revenge on Fortunato. On a night of celebration, Montresor promises Fortunato a taste of the wine Amontillado which lies in his family’s catacombs. He guides a drunk and gullible Fortunato through a series of chambers beneath the palazzo. When reaching to the final chamber, Fortunato awaits his fate, which is being buried alive in the catacombs. Due to his intense desire to seek
While at the carnival, Montresor bought some of the finest Amontillado wine to use in his vengeful plan to murder Fortunato. He then meets his "friend," Fortunato. Fortunato is wearing "a tight fitting parti-striped dress and head is surmounted by the conical cap and bells" (Poe 528). By him wearing this outfit, makes it great for the narrator because he is going to make a fool out of Fortunato. Montresor is a manipulative person. He challenges Fortunato's connoisseurship on wine tasting and leads him to his family estate.
The depths the narrator went in order to deem what he did to Fortunato as right as well as play the role of the victim were extreme. This can be seen when he gave no reason for the readers to blame him yet, only provided the blame on the horrid insults and actions of Fortunato. This was only achievable through playing the role of the narrator. This along with the fact that his objective to persuade Fortunato into getting very drunk with the further end goal of thinking he is being lead to a pipe (barrel) of Amontillado can solidified how unreliable Montresor and other first-person narrators can be. The true aim of Montresor was to get Fortunato very drunk to the point that his conscious state was altered and he would be unable to realize what was going on and try to stop Montresor from his plan of revenge.
After countless injuries that Fortunato presents to Montressor, he still endures them all. However, Montressor’s jealousy eventually gets to the best of him when he relentlessly describes, “When he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length, I would be avenged…he did not perceive at the time that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation” (Poe 3). Although it is not directly stated, it is clear he is jealous of Fortunato’s rights of insulting him and desires to relinquish this insult, whatever it might be. In addition, Montressor’s actions display what jealousy can psychologically do to a person and the bizarre and incredible lengths people would go to to overtake this jealousy. Likewise, Fortunato is also affected by jealousy because it is used to trick him into his own decease by Montressor. They talk about his fresh wine, debating whether it is real or simply a cheap brand as Montressor reassures him by saying, “As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchesi. If any one has a critical turn, it is he. He will tell me” (4). Astonished, Fortunato replies, “Luchesi cannot tell Amontillado from sherry…Come, let us go…To your vaults” (4). Inevitably, he grows jealous upon
Fortunato is not sure about the genuineness of the wine and wants to check its quality. He also wants to show his expertise. The author knows the victim’s personality very well and takes advantage of it to carry out his plan of revenge. Montresor tries not to make Fortunato suspicious.
...at the hands of his master. The mutilation of its eye, hanging it to death from a tree and killing his wife, which had shown the cat love. There are two interpretations you can take away from this story, the logic of guilt or supernatural fantasy. Which conclusion will you take?