Question

Which of the following details from the story provides readers with the best evidence that the narrator is not reliable (not trustworthy)?

He had to make an effort "to still the beating of [his] heart."


He explains, "I wished the morrow."


He was feeling "weak and weary." When he opened the door to see who was there, he immediately thought it was his dead wife "Lenore."

Answer 1

The answer is He was feeling "weak and weary." When he opened the door to see who was there, he immediately thought it was his dead wife "Lenore"

the narrator was struggling with depression because of the grief caused by his wife's death and was poorly rested, so he was unreliable.

Answer 2

Which of the following details from the story provides readers with the best evidence that the narrator is not reliable (not trustworthy)?

The correct answer is, “He had to make an effort "to still the beating of [his] heart."”

• There is an Extratextual signal of unreliable narration emphasized by the use of the square brackets. These are used in the sentence to contradict the reader’s general knowledge of the world. The use of his in square brackets makes us infer that the narrator is talking about someone else’s heart, not the one the listener thinks he or she is talking about. Square brackets are used to add words spoken by someone rather than the original speaker in order to clarify the situation. However, the narrator uses them to create confusion.