"Unreliable" First-Person Narrator

Edgar Allan Poe, "The Tell-Tale Heart"

True!--nervous--very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you

say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses--not destroyed--not dulled

them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven

and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and

observe how healthily--how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived,

it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved

the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold

I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that

of a vulture--a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood

ran cold; and so by degrees--very gradually--I made up my mind to take the life of the

old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever.

"The Cask of Amontillado"

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 I

gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was

a point definitively 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.

It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given

Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued as was my wont,

to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at

the thought of his immolation.