Question

Montresor is telling his story fifty years ("half of a century") after committing murder. What do you believe motivated him to share his tale so long after the events? Is Montresor a sociopath, or does he possess a conscience? Use evidence from the story to support your position.

Answer 1

Answer and Explanation:

Montresor is telling his story fifty years ("half of a century") after committing murder. What do you believe motivated him to share his tale so long after the events?

I believe Montresor to be a very proud man. As such, he cannot help but feel satisfaction and a sense of self-gratification for having gone half a century without being caught. He shares the story because it pleases him to do so. He is sharing it like someone would share their greatest accomplishments, a discovery, a success. The evidence that Montresor is proud is given to us right at the beginning of the story, when he explains that he did what he did due to feeling offended:

THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely, settled --but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish but punish with impunity. 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.

Notice that the passage above also reveals his intent of remaining unpunished.

Is Montresor a sociopath, or does he possess a conscience? Use evidence from the story to support your position.

Montresor does display the characteristics typically attributed to a sociopath. He is certainly proud, calculating, and deceiving. He planned meticulously, knowing his target's flaws and using them to his own advantage. He also showed no emotion or remorse whatsoever. Quite the contrary, while he walled Fortunato alive, he did it coldly. Even when there were moments of hesitation or heaviness of heart, it was not due to guilty. It was either due to the dampness of the catacombs, or due to brief fear that Fortunato might have escaped and would try to attack him:

A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back. For a brief moment I hesitated, I trembled. Unsheathing my rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess; but the thought of an instant reassured me. I placed my hand upon the solid fabric of the catacombs, and felt satisfied.

[...]

My heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so. I hastened to make an end of my labour.