The Cask of Amontillado Edgar Allan Poe - James W. Spisak (essay date 1979)
James W. Spisak (essay date 1979)
SOURCE: "Narration as Seduction, Seduction as Narration," in The CEA Critic, Vol. XLI, No. 2, January, 1979, pp. 26-9.
[In the following essay, Spisak considers Montresor's pleasure in telling his story as both the protagonist and the narrator.]
By assuming, with most readers, that the narrator of Poe's "Cask of Amontillado" is motivated by guilt to tell his tale, we miss the twin seduction he invites us to share. Besides apparently luring Fortunato to his doom, Montresor also draws the reader to partake in the pleasure he relives in telling the tale of his successful seduction. The narrator mentions his audience only once early in the tale, offering no indication as to why the listener should "so well know" him. There is no other evidence in the story of a real listener. Hence, the "you" seems to be a direct reference to the reader rather than to a third-person confessor. During the course of the story,...
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