This is another unreliable first-person narrator, again detailing a seemingly motive-less murder. For most of this story, however, the narrator seems like a professor or an essayist.
This story is set primarily in the narrator's mind, as he spends most of the story expounding on his theories of the human mind and "perverseness."
For most of this story, Poe's narrator seems to be writing a treatise on the workings of the mind rather than a piece of fiction. Even the sentence which follows seems to be a type of thesis statement.
"In the consideration of the faculties and impulses — of the prima mobilia of the human soul, the phrenologists have failed to make room.....
This is a free excerpt of 118 words. This section contains 231 words. This
study guide contains 2,760 words (approx. 9 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Literature Guide with our The Imp of the Perverse Access Pass.
