In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado,"

Question

In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado," do you think the first-person point of view makes you more sympathetic or less sympathetic toward Montresor than you would be if his story were told by a third-person narrator. Why or why not?

Answer 1

The short answer is more sympathetic, because you get to see more of the character's motivations and fewer opposing viewpoints.

Here is the long answer:

Usually, a story written in the first or second person is going to feel more personal than one written in third person. Third person writing tends to be a bit more matter of fact. It has to describe things from a distance whereas a first person story puts you literally in a character's head. Saying "James did this because of how he felt" and "Katie did something else, with these other feelings."

In the case of a character committing horrible deeds, it can definitely make the reader more sympathetic than they would be if they just saw the story written out as if it were in a newspaper. "This man murders that man in a cruel way, out of revenge." is usually harder for a reader to condone than "I hate that dude. I'm going to sit around remembering what he did wrong to me. He deserves what I'm doing."

Furthermore, a third person narrator is more likely to include facts that contradict the main character's point of view. It might go like this: "Alfred kicked Nick as payback for stealing his toy last week. Nick was caught off-guard because he hadn't stolen the toy. The thief was really Bobby."

In first person writing you usually get a more in-depth view of one character, while in third person writing you usually can get into the heads of more characters, but less intimately. It creates a trade-off for the writer to choose between the different writing styles.

This is not absolute. As you read more stories, you will find that authors love to do things in new and weird ways. There are some very personal and emotional stories written in third person as well as some very impersonal ones written in first person.