“The Cask of Amontillado”: Fortunato asked to be Buried alive “The Cask of Amontillado” written by Edgar Allen Poe is nothing short of a brilliantly scary masterpiece. We are to believe that Montresor, who is a man of stature and significance, holds a deep dark secret. During a monologue in the story, Montresor tells the reader about his secret. Montresor, a flamboyant man befuddled by the sins of his past, uses cunning and disguise to convince Fortunato to finally ask to be entombed in the family vault. Montresor was insulted by Fortunato and takes his revenge. The author Edgar Allen Poe uses his main character Montresor to twist the fortune for Fortunato to ask to be buried alive by entangling him in a web of theme, allegory and allusion. …show more content…
Montresor never divulges the insult, which allows the reader to take a more open interpretation of the work. The reader cannot verify to what extent Montresor should go to exact his revenge; but Montresor has decided that Fortunato deserves to die for his misdeeds. The reader begins to judge the morality of his action and begins to wonder if Montresor is sane. This leads us to the validity of the previous transgression in which seeking revenge seem misguided. According to the text book theme is defined as “broadly and commonly, a topic explored in a literary work…usually, a theme is implicitly communicated by the work as a whole rather than explicitly stated” (Mays A14). Characters and symbols can be misinterpreted within a story easily especially this one. An allegory is defined as “a literary work in which characters, action and even settings have two connected levels of meaning” (Mays A1). Poe uses allusion throughout the concept of these story. Mays defines allusion as “a brief, often implicit and indirect reference within a literary text to something outside of the text” (A1). The flamboyance Montresor displays throughout the telling of his past is impressive.
Montresor states that he “must not only punish but punish with impunity” (par.1), which leads the reader to believe that he feels justified in taking the life of Fortunato. Poe describes the overall theme by giving us the impression that this is going to get ugly and quite possibly murderous. By the time we finally meet the transgressor in the middle of carnival time we know the gentleman’s fate, we are immediately clued into Montresor’s use of cunning and disguise. Being in the middle of carnival, people were in all sorts of costumes. Most of which did not allow each other to know exactly who is wearing what. Fortunato was dressed in “a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells” (par. 4). After leading his prey into his house by using a symbol a pipe of Amontillado. We find that the house staff has left Montresor saying, “to insure their immediate disappearance, one and all” (par.24) we reflect to his cunning how he is telling us this story without a main reason for the …show more content…
insult. Works Cited KIRKHAM, E.
BRUCE. "Poe's Amontillado, One More Time." American Notes & Queries, vol. 24, no. 9/10, May/Jun86, p. 144. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=43827580&site=ehost-live. Mays, Kelly J. The Norton Introduction to Literature. Portable 12th ed., W.W. Norton & Company, 2017. Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Cask of Amontillado." 1846. The Norton Introduction to Literature, by Kelly J. Mays, Portable 12th ed., W.W. Norton & Company, 2017, pp. 115-21. Stepp, Walter. "The Ironic Double in Poe's 'The Cask of Amontillado.'" Studies in Short Fiction, vol. 13, no. 4, Fall76, p. 447. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=7133381&site=ehost-live. White, Patrick. "The Cask of Amontillado": A Case for the Defense." Studies in Short Fiction, vol. 26, no. 4, Fall89, p. 550. EBSCOhost,
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I had told them that I should not return until the morning, and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to insure their immediate disappearance, one and all, as soon as my back was turned." Montresor must have been planning this for months, he has put everything into place to ensure he gets his revenge with no consequences. He waited until carnival so the whole city would be loud, knowing that it is carnival he knew Fortunato would be fairly intoxicated making him easily persuadable. Also because he knew it would be carnival he knew everyone would be dressed up and incognito so no one could ever identify him to keep himself innocent. But before all of that he went down through the catacombs and laid out a special area for what would be
Poe, Edgar A. "Short Stories: The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe." Short Stories: The
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” is a short psychological thriller. The murder of Fortunato haunts Montresor so greatly that he feels the compulsion to tell the story some fifty years after the fact. He appears to be in the late stages of life desperately attempting to remove the stain of murder from his mind. That it is still so fresh and rich in specifics is proof that it has plagued him, “Perhaps the most chilling aspect of reading Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ for the first time is not the gruesome tale that Montresor relates, but the sudden, unpredictable, understated revelation that the murder, recounted in its every lurid detail, occurred not yesterday or last week, but a full fifty years prior to the telling” (DiSanza).
Benton, Richard P. "The Cask of Amontillado: Overview." Reference Guide to Short Fiction. Ed. Noelle Watson. Detroit: St. James Press, 1994. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 3 Dec. 2010.
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Cask of Amontillado. Mankato, MN : The Creative Company, 2008. Print.
Poe, Edgar Allan. “ The Cask Of Amontillado.” Heritage Of American Literature .Ed. james E. Miller.Vol.2.Austin:Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,1991.20.Print.
The Case of Amontallido In a psychological perspective, the author’s life is linked with the behavior and motivations of characters in the story. The author’s name is Edgar Allan’s Poe who portrayed his self in his writing. The miserable life of Poe can be measured through “The Cask of Amontillado” in which character named “Montressor” showed indifferent feeling towards his victim. After burying Fortunado alive, Montressor felt bad after burying his victim alive but then he attributes the feeling of guilt to the damp catacombs.
Poe, E. A. “The Raven.” Bedford introduction to literature: Reading, thinking, writing. 10th ed. Boston: Bedford Bks St Martin’s. 2013. 789-791. Print.
“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.
In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” Montresor sets out on a vengeful mission that will end Fortunato’s life in an untimely fate. Montresor appeals to Fortunato’s love for wine to tempt the unsuspecting fellow to his impending doom. While Montresor tricks the foolish Fortunato frightfully, it is ultimately Fortunato’s pride that leads to his demise in the crypt. Poe uses several literary devices to foreshadow this murderous exploit of Montresor. Through the use of irony, symbolism, and imagery, the story entices readers to delve into the relationships and differences between Montresor and Fortunato.
Edgar Allen Poe’s gruesomely fascinating tale of vengeance and murder, “The Cask of Amontillado”, achieves its effect only through its usage of the first person point of view. This unusual perspective enables the reader to view the characters and conflicts through the eyes of the narrator, as he first discusses and justifies, and eventually, carries out his plans for the ruthless murder of his friend. The eerie tone and disorienting and materialistically-related setting of the story contribute to its theme of defending one’s honor and name and avenging all wrongdoings, even something so small as an insult.
Edgar Allan Poe is one of greatest American authors and poets. He is well-known as a master of using irony in his story. “The Cask of Amontillado” is a horror story about revenge of Montresor upon Fortunato. Fortunato believes Montresor is his good friend, but he ends up with being chained and walled in to the catacombs. There are three types of irony used in this short story: verbal irony, dramatic irony, and situational irony. Using these ironies, Poe wants the readers to understand about Montresor’s “friendship” with Fortunato.
Bloom, Harold. “Plot Summary of ‘The Cask of Amontillado.’” Bloom’s Major Short Story Writers: Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. Harold Bloom, Gwendolyn Bellerman. Chelsea House Publishers, 1999. 55. Print.
Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Cask of Admontillado.” The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. Hervey Allen. New York: Parkway Printing Company, 1938. 274-79.
Poe, Edgar Allan. “That Cask of Amontillado.” Ibiblio. U of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, N.d.