Is Montresor A Connoisseur

Montresor the Connoisseur of Death
The purpose for a story, particularly one that deals with graphic material such as murder, is not always crystal clear, an excellent example of a story where the purpose is shrouded in mystery is Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado”. At the end of “The Cask of Amontillado” it is revealed that the character Montresor is narrating this tale. This leads the reader to wonder what motivation could Montresor have for retelling this story fifty years later. The story places heavy emphasis on being a connoisseur or expert at something, in fact Montresor’s whole plan is focused around this one thing. When the tale is viewed with the perspective that Montresor is an unreliable narrator, then it can be seen

that he wishes to be viewed as a mastermind and expert on death.
The first thing that can be revealed is that Montresor is quite insane and a very unreliable narrator. Montresor never quite reveals what Fortunado did to offend him, and the reader can speculate that the offence may never have happened. He claims that “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge” (Poe 1). This statement is made with extremely sparing details and no specifics. Montresor does not want the reader to focus on what Fortunato did to offend him, he simple wants to convey that he should die. This causes a hole in the story that allows for the conclusion that this is a madman’s logic to justify murder. Montresor is also retelling this story nearly 50 years after it occurred, and it is highly possible that he exaggerates some of the events to fit his own pride and reasoning. With this, the question of why this tale is being retold after such a significant gap in time is brought up. Pride and renown seem to be the most plausible conclusion; Montresor wants the reader to think of him as a mastermind, a connoisseur of sorts, at murder.
Montresor may be crazy but his plan is well thought out and expertly executed. He has every detail accounted for; first he plays off of Fortunato’s pride by claiming someone else may be superior to him in wine connoisseurship. Montresor has already mentioned that Fortunato was an expert wine connoisseur, and that he takes pride in this. Montresor takes this knowledge to easily convince Fortunato to come with him. The knowledge that Fortunato is extremely prideful is confirmed when Fortunato emphatically interrupts Montresor in lines 12 and 13. From this point in the story onward Fortunato, is blinded by his pride to things that should have been obvious, such as the oddness that a newly bought cask of wine is so deep in the catacombs. Montresor also insures there will be no witnesses by carefully timing his plot and dismissing all of his servants. By timing his moves during the carnival, Montresor picked a time when he knows many people will be distracted either by drinking or entertainment. This guarantees that he can slip Fortunato away without much notice by the public. Carnivals are times where many people dressed up in various costumes such as a fool, Fortunato, or death, Montresor. With everyone dressed up, it is nearly impossible to tell who is who or keep track of anyone’s actions. By dismissing his servants, he covers two things. First they cannot witness Montresor bringing Fortunato into the house and second the servants may view him positively and be unlikely to testify negatively about him. Montresor has also carefully picked the location of Fortunato’s prison so it will never be found. He draws Fortunato into the very back of his family’s catacombs where the stench and presence of death is already heavily felt, because nobody will ever notice another body in the catacombs even if that person happens to tear down the wall Montresor built. The wall is another masterstroke. Even if someone searching for Fortunato went into Montresor’s vaults they would simply see a wall covered in bones that appears to have been there for centuries. This whole plan was ridiculously well thought out and executed showing the massive amount of time, possibly years, that Montresor dedicated to bringing it to fruition.
If Montresor truly wants the focus to be on his genius, he will direct his audience’s attention solely on his plan and its execution.

He gives very little information about Fortunato, past that he is a wine connoisseur. There is no mention of what Fortunato does for leisure, his family, or even his job. In fact, the only details the reader receives on Fortunato paint him as a fool, with his costume, his drunken attitude, and obliviousness Montresor is focuses on the facts that make Fortunato look bad; he not only wants Fortunato dead but he also wants Fortunato’s name discredited. Montresor tells the reader even less about himself because there is no background to who Montresor is, what he does, or even what kind of contact he has with Fortunato. The only true details of Montresor that are given must be implied and give a sense of intelligence. In addition, he gives little to no details about the carnival, such as where it was, why the carnival was happening, or even why he chose this particular day to enact his plan. From these details, or lack of details, it seems Montresor doesn’t want his audience to know this information. The audience is supposed to simply look at Fortunato a fool and Montresor a genius, the harbinger of death. The facts such as who these people were, the time, or the setting are not important to Montresor’s focus in the

story.
From where Montresor enacts his scheme to the end of the story is extensively detailed. He wants the reader to see how clever he is in tricking Fortunato, so he tells of everything that happens. This shows that Montresor believes himself very clever in his plan; he wants his audience to admire him in a similar way that people admired Fortunado for his wine connoisseurship. He wants the reader to see that his plan to make the servants leave was foolproof. Montresor says with confidence that “These orders were sufficient…. insure their immediate disappearance” (Poe 24). While convincing Fortunato to enter the crypt, Montresor even seems to act concerned for his friend’s welfare so that Fortunado would never suspect a thing. Montresor even planned to intoxicate Fortunato to keep him unawares and easy to overcome. Montresor is highlighting all the parts of his story that make him look like an expert, and is begging the audience to see him in a lofty manor.
Montresor’s actions also spell out that he truly enjoys this; he plays with Fortunato in ways that were not necessary. Due to Fortunato’s pride, simply mentioning to him that someone could be superior would have been sufficient to entice him into the vaults. Montresor however choses to keep up a dialogue with Fortunato that might convince him to leave. In this section of the story, Fortunato is revealed to have a nasty cough; Montresor uses this cough to his advantage to reinforce the sense of pride that lured Fortunato into the vaults to start with. With every mention of the cough comes a seemingly generous offer from Montresor to return to the surface. This generosity is only superficial, because Montresor immediately mentions that if they decide to return to the surface, he will seek out Luchesi to identify the wine. This mention is a skilled placement to immediately turn Fortunato’s mind away from his cough and back to his pride and opinion that Luchesi is an ignoramus. This part of the story shows exactly how much Montresor has studied Fortunato so that he is able to balance this conversation without erroneously convincing Fortunato to leave the vault. Once again Montresor focus on the details of the story that show how well thought out and prepared this plan is.
Even though this whole story is strange and presented by an obviously impaired narrator, some things remain constant. One of these constants is how the narrative focuses on the details of how great Montresor’s plan is and the picture that it paints of Montresor himself. The structure of the story itself shows what the reader is meant to focus on, from the sparing details at the beginning that just fall to the wayside to the greatly intricately described plot of murder that captivates the reader’s attention. Even within the dialect, it is seen that most sentences shine a light of brilliance on Montresor. The question of why this story is being retold after fifty years can be answered by saying that Montresor is telling the story to show himself as a brilliant mastermind and schemer at murder.