"How does Poe's use of unreliable first-person narrators affect our reception of his stories?"

In many of Poe's short stories, such as "The Tell-Tale Heart," the narrators are madmen and murderers who fail to disguise their lack of rationality with a discussion of their thought processes. However, their stories inevitably reveal gaps in their chains of thought that speak to their descent into immorality and selfishness. In many cases, insanity is interlocked with the narrators' emotional egotism; they are incapable of empathizing with others and think only of their own desire to satisfy their honor or their need to end the disruptions to their lives. On the other side of the equation lie Poe's rational characters, who are capable of consciously setting aside their own emotions in order to logically solve their problems. For example, C. Auguste Dupin's skill lies in being able to empathize with others in order to solve seemingly impossible cases. Where Poe's irrational characters create confusion out of order, Dupin is capable of reversing the process.