Obsession and Deviance Poe presents the narrators of "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Cask of Amontillado" as devious, obsessed characters. Both are overpowered by the need to consume the life of their victim. Though they use different strategies to carry out the murders in different ways, obsession is the driving force in both. It is this obsession that inspires them to design these cunning strategies and carry out the executions. The obsession of Montresor in "…showed first 75 words of 1797 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1797 total…anybody, and the reader never becomes aware of exactly what he is planning to do until it actually happens. These two stories vividly show just what an extreme obsession can lead a person to do. The two narrators called upon every ounce of cunning and shrewdness that they possessed and used it to destroy the source of their obsession. Their obsessions had inspired and controlled them both, and they let nothing get in their way.