Examples Of Sane In The Cask Of Amontillado

Sane vs. Insane
Revenge can be an act of sanity or insanity. Insanity is a state of mind where a person lacks emotion and the ability for a higher level of thought. In the short story “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, the main character, Montresor, murders Fortunato for insulting him. Montresor lures Fortunato into the catacombs under his mansion during Carnival in Italy with the promise of amontillado. Montresor walls Fortunato into a niche, thereby killing him. Montresor is sane because he is able to think of a plan to kill Fortunato and feel regret after the deed is done.
The ability to make plans and carry them out effectively is the mark of a sane person, which Montresor shows through the complexity of his plot to kill Fortunato.

Montresor has just arrived at his servant-free house with Fortunato when the text says, “I... had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to ensure their immediate disappearance…” (Poe 214). In this quote Montresor uses reverse psychology on his servants to ensure there are no witnesses to the murder of Fortunato. This shows that Montresor is not only capable of a high level of thinking, but also that he is quite intelligent. Another example of Montresor’s plotting abilities occurs deep in the catacombs, when Montresor begins to carry out the murder part of his plan, “A moment more and I had fettered him to the granite. In its surface were two iron staples… From one of these depended a short chain, from the other a padlock” (Poe 216). In this quote it is brought to the reader’s attention that Montresor has been planning the demise of Fortunato for a while, shown by the fact that Montresor has exactly what he needs for what he wants to do. The ability to think ahead and make an effective plan is not a trait seen in an insane person but rather, as mentioned before, in an intelligent person. These two quotes coupled together show that Montresor is sane because he is able to plot and carry out a difficult plan.
Yet, despite the immense skill and planning it took for Montresor to kill Fortunato, he feels a slight pang of remorse for what he has done.

When Montresor has almost completed the wall that eventually suffocates Fortunato, Fortunato becomes unresponsive to Montresor’s banter. This upsets some part of Montresor, as shown in the text, “My heart grew sick- on account of the dampness of the catacombs” (Poe 217). This quote shows that Montresor feels regret for killing Fortunato, though he tries to deny to himself that he regrets it. In fact, his denial of his emotions proves that he has them. In the quote, there is a hyphen between where he says his heart is sick and where he says it is sick because of the catacombs. This hyphen shows that Montresor added the second part of the sentence as an afterthought, which means he is trying to deny his emotions. This is significant because when a person tries to explain away their feelings, it is because they do not know how to deal with them. Montresor does not want to feel regret because it means that perhaps he was wrong and killing Fortunato was not the right thing for him to do after all. On top of that, symbolically speaking, the heart is the emotional core of a person’s body. It is not a coincidence that it is Montresor’s heart and not some other part of his body, such as his lungs, that is harmed from this experience. This evidence proves that Montresor is sane because it shows that the death of Fortunato evokes a semblance of

regret from him.
Montresor is sane because he has a high capacity for thought and some capacity for emotion. Montresor’s detailed plan shows that he has a higher level of thinking than most people, sane or insane. Insane people lack emotion, which is not true in Montresor’s case, as shown when he feels regret for killing Fortunato. These are just a few reasons why Montresor is sane in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Cask of Amontillado.”