Murder Has Always Been A Fascinating Element In Fiction

Murder has always been a fascinating element in fiction that catches the audience s attention. The unbalanced main characters in the two murder stories, The Cask of Amontillado and A Rose for Emily drive the plots of the stories. Montresor and Miss Emily, the murderers in each story, engage the readers, allowing them to have a different perspective on their actions and similar motives of murder. A close examination of the way Montresor, the narrator of The Cask of Amontillado, and Miss Emily, the protagonist of A Rose for Emily, commit the action of murder towards their victims demonstrates how authors Edgar Allan Poe and William Faulkner use this entire concept to display the main characters’ similar traits. Similar but having different†¦show more content†¦In Poe s story, for example, Montresor ensures that the house is empty before Fortunato arrives. Montresor mentions that There were no attendants at home; they had absconded to make merry in honour of the time. I had told them that I should not return until the morning, and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to insure their immediate disappearance, one and all, as soon as my back was turned. (Poe 180). Montresor also makes sure that Fortunato is completely drunk before he lures him to the Amontillado. In Faulkner s story, Miss Emily is aware that she will murder Homer the moment she purchases the arsenic from a druggist. When the druggist asks her what she will be using the arsenic for, she intentionally just stared at him, her head tilted back in order to look him eye for eye (Faulkner 632). Faulkner indicates here that Miss Emily will not be using the arsenic for rats, but will instead use it to kill Homer. Like one another, Montresor and Miss Emily deviously plot out their murders to avoid any possible suspicion. 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