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The character of Montresor in The Cask of Amontillado
The character of Montresor in The Cask of Amontillado
The character of Montresor in The Cask of Amontillado
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Criminals in stories tend to be cold hearted and ruthless- they never regret their crimes. In “The Cask of Allmontiado”, Montresor never feels guilty for his actions. In fact the author kind of trick us by saying that “My heart felt sick.” but then adding that it was because of the damp, not his actions. This quote is meant to make us see the lack of remorse because at the beginning of the line, we believe that Montresor realizes what he has done and that he is feeling guilty, but then the author adds that the sick feeling is caused by the dampness, not guilt. Montresor simply doesn’t feel guilt, proving that he can hide his crime very well. Some people may argue that other stories, like “The Utterly Perfect Murder” by Ray Bradbury contain
characters that cannot follow through on their plans because of remorse or guilt. However, Doug from “The Utterly Perfect Murder” can’t go through with the crime for a different reason- he realizes that his intended victim, Ralph, is already “dead” in a way. Doug sees that “Time had gotten there before [him]”, so it’s pointless- Time has claimed it’s victim and theres nothing Ralph or Doug can do to change it. Doug’s decision is also influenced by the fact that no matter what Ralph did to him in the past, Time will treat both men the same. Since it’s not remorse that influences his actions, stories like this are not good examples for this argument. Lastly, Vera from And Then There Were None does not feel remorse when she kills the only other person on the island- she is actually quite happy. She kills Lombard so she can be “safe”, when in reality, she then kills herself, due to guilt from an earlier crime. Vera’s guilt doesn’t come from killing Lombard, but from the death of Cyril, a boy she baby-sat for long before the story begins. Had she remained alive, we could expect that she would confess to Cyril’s murder, but not Lombard’s. It is interesting how one person can feel different amounts of guilt for two different crimes and how this impacts their decisions.Overall, some characters feel guilt for their crimes, however an overwhelming majority do not and can hide their crimes extremely well.
Montresor, fifty years after it happened, is confessing to the murder of his foe, Fortunato. He justifies his actions by saying that Fortunato caused him a thous...
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
No matter how well executed, a crime of this magnitude will leave scars on the conscience, thus marring it’s perfection. Conflicting psychological emotions and actions plague the journey causing inner conflict ranging between pity and revulsion by the time the narrator concludes. Notwithstanding the shortage of information on Montresor’s life in the ensuing fifty years since Fortunato’s death; it can be surmised from the events leading to the murder that Montresor does, in fact, have a conscience and that it builds upon itself as the action
In "Cask of Amontillado", Montresor is the narrator. "The thousand of injuries of Fortunato he has borne as he best could; but when he ventures upon insult, Montresor vows revenge" (Poe 528). As the story unfolds, "Montresor's idea of perfect revenge" is "characteristically precise and logical in detail" as to how he commits his crime (Delaney 1).
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
In “The Cask of Amontillado,” Montressor was calm and collected. He is ruthless in achieving his only motive throughout the story, which is revenge for how Fortunado has offended him. Even after Montressor committed murder, he does not reveal this fact to anyone for over fifty years. This fact depicts Montressor does not feel guilty. On the other hand, In “Tell-Tale Heart,” the man’s personality is described as insane, constantly nervous, and paranoid. He rarely sleeps at all and portrays to be completely lonely. Once the man kills the old man, he instantly begins hearing a noise a heart pumping. The pumping of the old man’s heart, which is getting louder each moment, portrays the killer’s guilty conscience. However, in the the “Tell-Tale Heart, the murderer’s unstable mental health and guilty conscience lead him to bury the old man’s body under the floorboard in an extremely brutal manner. He also confesses to the authority, assuming they can all hear the noise of the heart
In “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Cask of the Amontillado’ Montresor and the unknown narrator are both murders through their confessions they reveal both their similarities and differences. The unknown narrator is trying to convince the auditor of his sanity while Montresor is attempting to convince the auditor of justifiable revenge. It is through these confessions they are trying to convince the auditor of their humanity and of their innocence through the justification of these horrible acts (Dern 53).
“The Cask of Amontillado” is a dark piece, much like other works of Edgar Allan Poe, and features the classic unreliable narrator, identified by himself only as Montresor. This sinister central character is a cold ruthless killer that is particularly fearsome because he views murder as a necessity and kills without remorse. Montresor is a character who personifies wickedness. Poe uses this character and his morally wrong thoughts and actions to help the reader identify with aspects of the extreme personage, allowing them to examine the less savory aspects of their own. The character of Montresor detailing the glorious murder he committed is a means of communicating to the reader that vengeance and pride are moral motivators that lead to treacherous deeds and dark thoughts.
Because Montresor narrates the story in the first person, the reader is able to perceive his thoughts and understand his motivations and justifications for his ruthless murder in a manner which a third person point of view would not allow. Montresor’s personal narration of the events of the story does not justify his crime in the audience’s eyes, but it does offer a unique opportunity for the audience to view a murder from the perspective of a madman killer. It is Poe’s usage of this unique angle that causes the story to be so captivating and gruesomely fascinating. As the story opens, Montresor explains why it is necessary that he “not only punish but punish with impunity” to avenge for Fortunado’s insult to him. This justification for his crime is a piece of information that the audience is able to learn only because they are permitted inside the mind of the protagonist. In the final scene, when Montresor is carrying out his murder pl...
Revenge is best served cold or so says the well-known expression. This idea of revenge that they seek is usually to restore a balance and take an “eye for an eye” as the bible says. Revenge, if by chance everyone were in Plato’s perfect utopia, would be in a perfect form, where justice and revenge would be one, and the coined phrase an “eye for an eye” would be taken literally. By taking an eye for and eye, and punishing those who did wrong equally as they did wrong, there is justice. However, this revenge sometimes goes to far and is consequently not justice. This notion of Revenge and justice is often in literature, one of the better-known being the novel The Count of Monte Cristo, written by Alexandre Dumas. However, literature is not the only time that revenge and justice is discussed in. Works and Rules and real-life events that took place like the Bible, Hammurabi’s code, Twelve Tables, and others each have something different about the topic. More religious texts seem to forbid violence, while laws, such as the Hammurabi’s code, recommend revenge, but equal revenge. By judging from literature, it can be concluded that most authors have different opinions on the matter at hand, and revenge is sometimes justice, but usually not, and tends to lead to violence that was not intended.
“The Cask of Amontillado” starts out with the narrator, later discovered to be Montresor, positioning himself as a victim of Fortunato. In the opening line, he states, “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could” (714). Instantaneously one feels sympathetic towards a person that has withstood a thousand inflictions. Montresor goes on to tell a parable of sorts about vengeance, and “when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong” (715) he has lost. In this instance Poe has set Montresor apart from being at the least an unsuspecting
The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe describes how Montresor confesses the sequence of his well-designed or nearly flawless murder or revenge against Fortunato due to he is a threat to him. In his confession of a perfect crime, Montresor, who “vowed revenge” because of Fortunato’s “thousand injuries,” first say that his “heart grew sick” and then immediately add, “ it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so because he believes Fortunato insults him many times that his hatred against him become bigger and bigger. This makes him cannot stand for Fortunato’s behavior anymore as well as the setting completely makes everything prefect as he believes Fortunato deserves the punishment. The nature and family hold a significant role
Unlike “The Tell Tale Heart” were the narrator loved the old man just hated his eye, the narrator of “The Cask of Amontillado” hated Fortunato but did things that make it look like he loved him. Montresor approaches Fortunato with claiming to have acquired something that could pass for Amontillado. Here Montresor may seem like he is being nice but he really just using Fortunato’s love for wine against him. As they went through the catacombs Montresor gave Fortunato enough wine so that he would be drunk and would be oblivious of what was happening as they went deeper and deeper into the catacombs. Fortunato never expected this to be the plan but just as a simple act of kindness from Montresor. As mentioned in the introduction of this paper the narrator of this story wanted revenge. Why does the Montresor want revenge? Well it is mention in the story on page three “THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge” but never gives us a full reason just that Fortunato insulted the Montresor in some
The first indirect factor that could contribute to Montresor’s vengeful act, and thus the story’s theme of revenge, is the character of Montresor. Montresor tends to harbor feelings of resentment and has a hard time not taking things out of context (Womack). He also plans the murder of Fortunato in advance and devises it in such a way that he will not be caught. In killing Fortunato, Montreso...
This immediate familiarity helps the reader to see inside the calculating mind of Montresor, whom we later learn is a killer. When talking about the past insults of Fortunato, he takes on a cold, determined tone: “At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled […] I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong” (Poe, 618).