Montresor's family crest states their motto: "Nemo me impune lacessit", meaning no one attacks me with inpunity. When Fortunato, a "friend" of his, "ventures on insult," Montresor vows revenge. He does get his revenge: by walling in and suffocating Fortunato in the catacombs. Although Montresor is mad, he is intelligent, carefully plans out his actions, and does not think of the remorse from his actions, which is a deadly combination.
Montresor does have some disconnect or mental problem. He wishes to kill Fortunato for insulting him, but he never specifies what insult it was. He also states he has borne a thousand injuries. This is an exaggeration- Montresor only says this because he needs a reason to kill Fortunato. If Fortunato has done anything to deserve a painful death, he would certainly know, but Montresor does not let fortunato know what he has done and states "neither by word nor deed had [Montresor] given Fortunato cause to doubt [his] goodwill." Montresor's madness is also made clear by his method of killing Fortunato; he suffocates him in a wall built in f...
It is constantly seen that people take revenge on each other in the real world so it comes to no surprise that Montresor is taking revenge on Fortunato. Specifically in this story Montresor will feel better if he “not only punish but punish with impunity” (108 Poe). But further on what I found to even more realistic was that this wasn’t normal revenge, this was pure mastermind torture. Montresor knew that Fortunato was sick with Montresor saying “…but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted”(109 Poe) regarding that he didn’t want Fortunato to come down to his vaults, but Montresor true intentions were wanting Fortunato to fight Montresor request of not coming, and it worked. Montresor also knew how well Fortunato was at differencing wine “I was silly enough to pay the full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter” (109 Poe). By Montresor exploiting Fortunato’s sickness and skill of wines, Montresor knew that he could get Fortunato in the vaults where he could execute his revenge. At a first glance this may not seem lifelike because there’s an assumption to be made that people aren’t this immoral. But the truth is that the revenge that Montresor conducted is seen constantly in our culture. It’s undeniably real of the monstrosity that was made by Montresor when comparing it to the wicked
Montresor is a man who feels pride in himself and in his family, so when Fortunato—an acquaintance of Montresor— “venture[s] upon insult,” Montresor “vow[s] revenge” against him (1). Montresor hastily decides that he must kill Fortunato, even though his use of the word “venture” implies that Fortunato had not yet insulted him, but nearly did. Montresor’s impulsive need for revenge causes him to formulate a plan to murder his acquaintance. He keeps Fortunato intoxicated by “presenting him…[with] wine,” he “fetter[s] him to the granite,” and he “plaster[s] up… [a wall of] new masonry” to trap Fortunato in the catacombs (39, 71, 89). All of these acts are signs that the need for revenge has made Fortunato insane. A person who has any sense of morals would not commit crimes such as Montresor’s. His impetuous decision to exact revenge caused him to lose his
Montresor proves not to mess with someone's feeling. He explains, “I must not only punish, but punish with impunity” (Poe 372). Fortunato does not know that he is going to die, yet Montresor and the reader do know, making the situation dramatic irony. By punishing him with impunity he is going to get revenge that he has wanted now for years ever since he did wrong to Montresor and now that he finally gets the chance of course he will seek revenge on Fortunato. And it is dramatic irony because Fortunato is oblivious to the situation. Montresor proves that one should be careful on what they say. He speaks, “I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation” (Poe 372). Montresor is saying
Edger Allan Poe’s short story “The Cask of Amontillado” talks about how Montressor feels like he was insulted by his friend Fortunato. Also Montressor’s family motto is “Nemo me impune lacessit.”(Allan Poe 362), which means “No one insults me with impunity.”, and Montressor doesn’t want to let his family motto down so he uses it as a reason and make his revenge on Fortunato as a goal that has to be accomplished. Montressor tricks his friend Fortunato which was drunk at the moment, by asking him to follow him to his house and to check an expensive wine that he just purchased to be sure that he didn’t get tricked. Fortunato follows Montressor to his house and went down to the down stairs of Montressor’s house. When they get to the catacombs, Montressor chains up Fortunato and places him in a niche in the wall, and started to build a brick wall leaving him sealed inside to die in the catacombs.
Hoping to obtain revenge, Montresor, the narrator, lures Fortunato, one of his friends, into the depths of his catacombs to be murdered. Montresor says, "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge"(149). This is the first line in the story, and this is why Montresor seeks revenge. There is no explanation of the insults that Montresor received, so the reader may infer that Montresor is just lying. The insults that were received could possibly be just outdoing in the business arena. Montresor might be using that excuse for his desire to kill Fortunato, because he may be killing Fortunato out of jealousy. Montresor is likely telling this story to a family member, friend, or his doctor while lying on his deathbed. Montresor says, "…your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter."(150). Montresor just admitted that he knows Fortunato is better than he. Montresor may have been under the influence of jealousy. Redd 4 There are different theories to ...
As the story begins, Fortunato believes he and Montresor are friends or at the very least friendly. However, Montresor is secretly plotting Fortunato’s murder. Montresor believes that Fortunato has given a “thousand injuries” and it is not until he “insults” Montresor that Montresor springs into action. Unfortunately, it is never explained if these injuries and insults really happened or if they are a delusion. Montresor makes an unreliable narrator and one gets the feeling he suffers from a psychological disorder, such as delusional paranoid personality disorder. This disorder causes the victim to become obsessed with a delusion “involving a phenomenon that the person’s culture could conceivably regard as plausible.” They often believe “they have been injured by friends or strangers, and they tend to see other persons as enemies.” Montresor gives the impression he and Fortunato have known each other for an extended amount of time. Montresor knows more about Fortunato than Fortunato knows about Montresor; possibly because Fortunato is constantly drunk.
and his family, Montresor retaliated by plotting to kill him. Montresor thought of Fortunato as a
Gruesser further speculates that Montresor may in fact be speaking to a priest to relieve his conscience of the dread he experienced each day since he murdered Fortunato (130). Such a theory is further demonstrated when Montresor calmly echoes Fortunato's exclamation, "For the Love of God" (Poe, 1597). Fortunato is not just crying for mercy during the last few moments that he has a chance. He is also warning Montresor to think of his own demise and the next world thereafter (Delaney, 130). Therein lies the source of Montresor's half a century of dread. He was so blinded by his hatred and lust for revenge that he failed to think of his own soul. Only when it is too late does he realize to how great of an extent he may have actually affected his own life.
Is that, however, the only motive he may have for murdering the man? He says: "You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter" (Poe), giving us a complete list of traits he lacks in his own character. Hence, Montresor is Fortunato’s mirror image.
In the Cask of Amontillado, our narrator’s situation is one he is quite happy being in. Our narrator is Montresor, an Italian man rich with pride, and you quickly learn through his narration that he is intelligent, conniving, and extremely sinister. Throughout the story, everything Montresor does is motivated by one thing, his own thirst for vengeance. Montresor explains his actions are a result of Fortunato constantly abusing him and finally going too far, but he never explains anything Fortunato has done to insult him. When we meet Fortunato, he is extremely friendly towards Montresor, albeit a little intoxicated, so much that he makes Montresor’s story of “a thousand injuries” seem unbelievable (Cask 1). Compared to Gilman’s narrator whose spiral out of control was triggered by her forced seclusion from the outside world, it seems that Montresor’s insanity come from inside his own head. There is no evidence that suggest any attempts by Fortunato to belittle or insult Montresor in any way. I believe that Montresor may have been jealous of Fortunato’s success in life, and that is what drove him to vengeance. For example, on their way to the catacombs Fortunato makes a hand gesture of the Masons, a secret brotherhood, which Montresor doesn’t understand. Fortunato ask if Montresor is a Mason and for him to prove it, and Montresor lies and shows his trowel (Cask 5). This proves that
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a sociopath as someone who behaves in a dangerous or violent way towards other people and does not feel guilty about such behavior. Sociopaths lack a conscience that allows people to decipher between right and wrong. In A Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe, the narrator, Montresor, is believed to be a sociopath by many. He kills his friend, Fortunado, after he literally adds insult to a thousand of injuries. Though what the insult was and the previous injuries were never revealed to the reader, it could be assumed that Montresor probably overreacted to the Fortunado’s insult. But in order to answer this question the evaluation upon his motivation, strategy, and Montresor’s feeling and emotion towards
Expressing that psychologically, psychopathy is a mental disorder that typically has a tendency to lead back to a cell deficiency in the brain. Knowing that what Montresor believes is correct in his mind will show that he may possibly have a cell deficiency. The control the brain has over the mind is fascinating, therefore one can only follow actions that the brain pursues the mind to do. Montresor continues to use his manipulative skills that he is possessing from being a psychopath. He has a lack of remorse and guilt which leads him to happily feel sadistic gratification. Perceiving his revenge, he sub stains to pathologically lying so that he is able to put his revenge into action. Along with the traits Montresor possesses of psychopathology, his family motto “nemo me impune lacessit” has the possibility of maintain a genetic cause due to his family history of exulting revenge on those who treat them wrong. Montresor enjoys the revenge he is instilling on Fortunato, which follows his death. He pushes his family motto to the limits of exactly what it is meant to imply. Noticing that overall, the traits Montresor shows of a psychopath remains certainly made aware
Montresor’s pride of self-respect and dignity is reflected from the very beginning of the story. He speaks about the frequent insults from Fortunato. While the details of the final insult are never revealed, it caused Montresor to seek revenge, to the point of murder. He
When they arrive at the Montresor estate, Montresor leads Fortunato down the stairs into the catacombs. Down here is where the Amontillado Fortunato is going to taste and where the revenge of Montresor is going to take place. As he get closer and closer, the narrator opens up more and more to how he is going to kill his "friend". It sound like it is a premeditated murder. Montresor seems so inconspicuous that he acts like he cares about Fortunato which is still a part of his plan.
Thompson discusses the significance of Montresor’s family motto, “These details are essential to our understanding of the family imperatives rooted in Montresor 's mind as he plans and carries out the killing of Fortunato. ‘Nemo me impune lacessit.’ Montresor 's family motto has been translated, ‘No one attacks me with impunity’"(Thompson 552). This means that anyone who attacks the family name is warrant for