Poe’s Narrators
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I find the narrative voices in all of these short stories to be very interesting. Poe makes it a point in each piece to have an aura of mystery and authority in each of his narrators, who seem to be coming to the reader as if to share a long-awaited and famed story. For example, in William Wilson, the narrator makes a point many times to tell us that William Wilson is not his real name, and that he is using a fake one. We don’t know why, and it’s very interesting to consider why Poe would take this character to another level of fiction that seems unnecessary to the story. However, it does add to the gothic mood he creates and fills the story and the character with even more mystique. He does a number of similar things with all of his narrators, which I found peculiar (for example, when the husband in Ligeia can’t remember his wife’s last name) but they all seem to fit the story well and add to the uniquely thrilling tone he constructs. I also loved his use of magical realism in Ligeia, The tell-tale heart, and Usher. He makes his narrators unreliable, making them opium addicts, alcoholics, or just plain crazy to blur the line between what is actually happening or what is made up in their minds.
What I found most interesting about the narrator in William Wilson was his repeated insistence that the other William Wilson was imitating him, when it would seem just as likely to be the opposite. The narrator seems to show a certain biased perspective in talking about the other William Wilson. I found this also in Ligeia when the narrator very abruptly transitions between grief over the dead Ligeia to marrying Rowena, without explaining why he decided to get married again. In both cases, I think the narrators show a biased perspective that leaves out the more negative aspects of their decisions and personality.
Poe’s unreliable narrators are really what make his stories so appealing. He allows people a glance inside the mind of a murderer(The Tell-Tale Heart), an insider’s view of madness(William Wilson), and makes the supernatural events in his stories believable. Maybe you don’t believe in ghosts, but the narrator in Ligeia says that he saw one, or maybe he was just intoxicated. He’s not disagreeing with you. The confusion continues the blur between reality and fantasy, and adds another level of excitement. How boring would it be if the narrators in these stories were sane?