ABSTRACT This essay examines the function of metanarrative as well as the ways in which the binary systems of truth and fiction, indeed, life and death, are deconstructed through Poe's narrative of structure and lexical choices. The author seeks to illustrate the "unsettling partnership" formed between speaker and reader and the dual personae of the reader as both observer and participant. "The premature burial" also acts as a reference point for a discourse among several of Poe's other works as well as Nathaniel Hawthorne's masterpiece "The Minister's black veil". Ultimately, this essay will leave the reader with a better understanding of the various mechanisms at work in "Burial", and a sense of the literary, and literal, impact of Poe's work upon the human psyche.
