Narrator and point of view

The short story “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe is a first-person narration, told from the perspective of the main character, Montresor. Since the story is a personal account of the narrator, his knowledge is omniscient with regards to the events, but limited with regards to the other main character, Fortunato. The narrator does not know what Fortunato thinks, but only how he looks and reacts, based on observations: “It was almost dark, one evening in the spring, when I met Fortunato in the street, alone. He spoke to me more warmly than was usual, for already he had drunk more wine than was good for him.”

The use of past tenses indicates that the story is told in retrospect, yet we only find out at the end that the events took p...