Calling Poe's narrator unreliable has always struck me as wrong. He's entirely reliable. He's old-family Italian, and knows that there's a vast difference between injury and insult. No one, I think, has ever commented on the mysterious "you, who know the condition of my soul" at the beginning of the story. The identity becomes clear at the end, when Montresor reveals that the murder took place 50 years earlier. He is clearly making a deathbed confession to his priest. The "R.I.P" at the end doesn't just apply to Fortunato ("Lucky"!) but to himself.
What's fascinating is that this is the story of a perfect murder, told as a how-to-do-it story. M. is a master of reverse psychology: to make sure the servants won't be at home, he issues strict commands for them to not to leave the house; to keep F. going, he implores him to give up the quest. To abjuct him with no one noticing them together, he does so in the middle of a Mardi Gras crowd, while wearing the most generic of all costumes--black mask and cape. He doesn't even have an apparent motive since it must have been clear to others that he'd "put up with" F. for a long time. It's one of Poe's most brilliant tales.
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