The Tell Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado are two fictional psychological horror stories written by Edgar Allen Poe. The two stories have many similarities, including that they both have main characters who murder someone, and have many compelling ‘evil’ traits to discuss. However, the character Montresor from The Cask of Amontillado is more evil than the Narrator from The Tell Tale Heart. This is because Montresor feels no kind of guilt over the murder he’s committed, and was completely sane while murdering his victim. Montresor has undoubtedly committed a malicious crime, but what arguably makes it even worse is that he both feels no remorse for what he’s done, and never faces any consequence for it. He states in the text, “And I put the old bones again in a pile against the wall. For …show more content…
Evidence from the text that supports this statement is when Montresor tells the reader, “I would make him pay, yes, but I would act only with the greatest care. I must not suffer as a result of my revenge,”(Poe 1) This shows that he willingly murdered Fortunato while fully understanding the possible consequences and chose to keep it hidden in order to not face them, until he was on his deathbed. Another quote from that character that supports this is “I acted pleased to see him, and I shook his hand, as if he had been my closest friend.”(Poe 2) In comparison to the Narrator, who had frequent visual and auditory delusions therefore was not able to fully comprehend what he was doing, Montresor’s actions are objectively much more evil. Despite the fact that people disagree, the listed quotes show how the Narrator’s actions compared to Montresors are less