What price did the protagonist in “Clean” pay for concealing his involvement in the killing and burial of his classmate?

1. What price did the protagonist in “Clean” pay for concealing his involvement in the killing and burial of his classmate? What price did Montresor pay for burying his friend Fortunato alive? What price did “The Briefcase’s” protagonist pay for allowing the professor to take his place in the chain gang and then assuming the innocent professor’s identity?

2.Cite textual evidence in the story that the chef in “The Briefcase” begins to believe his own lie after he assumes the identity of the professor.
3.What are the effects of the murder on Clean’s narrator and his failure to confess? How guilty does the narrator feel about the murder he has participated in? How has the incident changed his life? Explain the story’s ending– does he confess or will he confess?

4.Why is the story entitled “Clean.” Find and cite specific passages it connects to. Be sure to look at the ending as well.

5.With the last words of the story “Clean”–“all of us with our own given histories”–the protagonist seems to imply that many people go through comparable experiences. How typical of a person does Clean’s narrator strike you to be? Is he unusually bad? Can you sympathize with him?
6. What motivates Edgar Allan Poe’s Montresor in his search for revenge?

7. As Poe’s first person narrator, Montresor relates the story, “half a century” later. Is Montresor, a reliable character? Is he sane? Now over ninety years of age, has his attitude changed toward his gruesome act?

8.Does trapping Fortunato make Montresor free?

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