Question

How does Poe describe the characters in "The Cask of Amontillado" to seem like real people?

Answer 1

As is characteristic of his narrators, Poe's Montresor is clearly an unreliable narrator. His emotional declaration in the first sentence indicates a tunneling of vision:

The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.

Following this declaration, Poe addresses the readers as though they should understand his statement:

You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat.

Then, Poe's "explanation" of his plan of revenge and its rationale displays a personality that is obsessed with redressing what he feels are wrongs against him:

At length, I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settle--but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.

Clearly, there seems to be a certain degree of psychological instability to a narrator who perceives whatever insults or injuries someone has done to him as "the thousand"; and, his addressing the "you, who know me so well" does not seem be normal in any way. That he has survived for fifty years after his murderous act does not necessarily exhibit mental stability. After all, many an insane person lives a full life without detection of his/her condition.

Answer 2

hi. JADA

Answer 3

But that doesn't really answer my question.