The principal character traits of Montresor,
as revealed in "," are pride, cruelty, sensitivity to insult, obsession with revenge,
a talent for dissimulation, and perhaps also an enjoyment ofand ambiguity (as revealed in his
joke about "masons" and his comments on his coat of arms).
It is a
matter of some difficulty to ascertain the character traits of . The matter is particularly
complicated because of the legend, spread in the years immediately after his premature death,
that Poe had been exceptionally wicked and vicious. Twentieth-century assessments, like that of
James Southall Wilson in his essay "The Personality of Poe" (attached), have been much
more balanced and evidence-based. From these, it seems that Poe was certainly rather proud,
haughty, and sensitive to insult. These qualities, along with his love of irony, he shares with
Montresor. He was not a particularly cruel man himself, though he was fascinated by cruelty in
others, and he clearly did not have anything like Montresor's fanatical desire for revenge. His
talent for dissimulation, however, may be indicated by what Wilson refers to as the "dark
cloak of mystery in which everything about the man and the artist has been
wrapped."
Even where he did not resemble Montresor, Poe's personality
was just the type to be intrigued by himobviously an important connection between a writer and
his subject.
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