Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado,"" is the story of a vengeful man, Montresor, which repays the supposed insult of his enemy, Fortunato. Montresor persistent in his mission lures Fortunato into the crypts of his home with the promise of Amontillado sherry. Not knowing what is in store for him, Fortunato follows Montresor into the crypt where his inevitable demise awaits. The entombment of his chained living body into the crypts of Montresor's home unrevealed for the next fifty years. Poe skillfully uses Montresor's point of view to create a storyline that brings to life an unreliable narrator, who divulges his horrendous crime to an important implied listener, all while displaying his intimate thoughts and emotions; reviling himself as an insane murder. .
Poe's use of first person narration establishes a more personal connection between the reader and narrator, who is the main character, Montresor. Poe not only uses the first narrative approach, but he also makes Montresor an unreliable narrator. In "Method to the Madness, " Patrick McGrath states "The Cask of Amontillado" is also a superb early example of the unreliable narrator at work. Having drawn us into Montresor's paranoia with his very first sentence, Poe will not let us escape. "With the use of an unreliable narrator, Poe lures in the audience and forces them to work out the truth behind Montresor's story. The reader is left to think about the actual reliability of the story that Montresor is telling; that of a truth or that of a lie. The use of first person narrative gives Montresor the ability to talk in a familiar tone, as if he knows the implied listener. "You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat " (190). Montresor's relationship in knowing the implied listener, who is seen as his confessor, allows him to fully open up and present each and every little detail about his sin from the very beginning of the story.
