The short story “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe represents two key themes: pride and revenge. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.” This story shows that Montresor, the narrator, rejects this thought and believes that revenge, even if deadly is the best way to get back at Fortunato. In “The Cask of Amontillado” Poe uses the pride and honor of Fortunato to find a way to achieve the revenge that Montresor desperately craves. Montresor believes in his mind that revenge is completely moral according to his personal ideas of pride, but he still understands that his actions of revenge would be wrong to the public’s view and in the end Montresor realizes that revenge is only a temporary enjoyment followed by years of remorse and guilt.
In summary Edgar Alan Poe uses “The Cask of Amontillado” as a story to show pride as both a motivator and as a way to achieve revenge. The story starts by telling us that Fortunato has hurt and insulted Montresor so he feels he must get revenge. He then meets Fortunato, who is dressed in jesters’ clothes for a carnival celebration. This makes Montresor more eager to invoke revenge. Montresor feels that the carnival is giving Fortunato too much enjoyment from life and needs to make Fortunato feel like he is not as important as himself which shows that both men are struggling for dominance and personal pride. Montresor then mentions that he has a barrel of “Amontillado” which is in his catacomb underneath the house. Fortunato is a wine enthusiast and wants to go and taste it because he believes he has the best knowledge of wine which shows his pri...
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...the individual to have guilt and remorsefulness. Montresor feels that his actions were justified at the beginning of the story and now that he successfully completed his plan of revenge, he has gained nothing from his actions and has lived fifty years with the feeling of guilt and remorse. This story can be applied to real life situations and the philosophy of revenge because when someone is hurting and feels they need to get revenge it feels good during the planning stages and the initial actions but when they finally finish they are left with the feeling of regret and guilt.
Works Cited
King, Martin L., Jr. "Revenge Quotes." BrainyQuote. Xplore, n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2014. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/revenge.html
Poe, Edgar A. "The Cask of Amontillado." Introduction to Literature. Boston: Pearson Custom Library, 2012. 206-12. Print.
In conclusion, Montresor is a very unique and demented character. This story strongly represents three characteristics that Montresor possesses. Montresor’s cleverness is the reason he can irony and detail to the situation. His determination is the driving force for all of his actions in the story. Finally, Montresor’s cruelty is what makes him a one-of-a-kind character with a unique course of action. All of these traits are what answer the question of who is
The setting of a story lays the foundation for how a story is constructed. It gives a sense of direction to where the climax is headed. The setting also gives the visual feedback that the readers need to picture themselves into the story and comprehend it better. Determining the setting can be a major element towards drawing in the reader and how they relate to a story. A minor change in the plot can drastically alter to perception, interpretation, and direction of the message that is delivered. These descriptive elements can be found within these short stories: “the Cask of Amontillado”, “The Storm”, “The Things They Carried”, “Everyday Use”, and “The Story of an Hour”.
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).
Poe's, The Cask of Amontillado is a story about fear and revenge. The story begins with Montressor's vow of revenge, foreshadowing future actions. "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could; but when he ventured upon insult vowed revenge..." Montressor had to be sure not to raise suspicion of what he was going to do Fortunato. Montressor knew that Fortunato had a weakness that he could use towards his advantage.
In the short story " Cask of Amontillado ", written by the famous poet, Edgar Allen Poe, the main character Montressor shows his deceptive side. Montressor wants to kill Fortunado as revenge for something Fortunado did in the past. So he unfolds a plan that he has set up to kill an enemy of his named Fortunado. One instance is when Montressor tempts Fortunado into the catacombs with a cask and wine called amontillado proving his skills in deceit. Montressor must have experience in tempting and deceiving people. He then plies Fortunado with good wine so that he will follow him and be swayed easier to go farther since he is not in the right mindand not recognize his deceit. Another time is when on Montressor asks Fortunado about his health when
Anything not taken in moderation can be damaging. In one of Edgar Allen Poe's best-known tales of horror, "The Cask of Amontillado," he suggests that pride can be a very dangerous thing, when one is overwhelmed with it. Through the use of foreshadowing, irony, and symbolism, Poe presents a horrific drama of two men. One who will stop at nothing to get the revenge that he deems himself and his family worthy of, and another who's pride will ultimately be the fall of his own death. Fortunato falls prey to Montressor's plans because he is so proud of his connoisseurship of wine, and it is for the sake of his own pride that Montressor takes revenge on Fortunato. Poe utilizes the theme of pride and many other literary techniques such as foreshadowing, revenge, and irony, in order to create a horrific and suspenseful masterpiece.
1. What can the reader infer about Montresor’s social position and character from hints in the text? What evidence does the text provide that Montresor is an unreliable narrator? We learned from paragraph 23 to 24 that Montresor owns a Palazzo and also has lot of retainers based on that evidence, the reader can infer that Montresor is a very wealthy and successful man. About his character, the reader can imply that Montresor is a heartless, cold blooded, sneaky, manipulative, and untrustworthy man, as well as a man who hold on to grudges. Moreover, Montresor is an unreliable narrator, because he reveals in the first paragraph that he intends to have a revenge on Fortunato, but he did not indicate or clearly prove to the readers how Fortunato
In Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of the Amontillado”, Montresor has always been viewed as a sociopath. He is a man who lured his friend into his family 's catacombs by lying to him. He then got his friend, Fortunato, drunk enough that he did not know what was going on. Montresor then chained his friend to a wall and boxed him in with mortar, all as an act of revenge and justice in his eyes. Although Montresor trapping Fortunato in the catacombs can be viewed as a cold, evil, heartless act, it does not mean that Fortunato’s death was meaningless. Montresor viewed Fortunato’s death as poetic justice, but others can not help but think of the irony of the situation. Poetic justice is defined as a result or occurrence that seems proper because someone
Vengeance and pride are fundamentally important to this short story. From the inception of the tale it is clear that the narrator is a proud, vindictive man; opening with, “the thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge,” the narrator immediately alerts the reader to the dark aspects of his own character. Because “insult” and not “the thousand injuries” caused the narrator to “vow” revenge, the reader can infer Montresor is prideful because, although he already had conflict with Fortunato, insult was what made the tense situation unbearable for Montresor––so much so that he vowed to take action. Use of the word “vow” is significant because it indicates that the grievance was meaningful in the mind of Montresor, allowing for the reader to more easily identify with the actions to be revealed throughout the course of the story; if the reader believes that Montresor was provoked in a profound way, ...
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.
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...
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...
Montresor’s infatuation with revenge drove him to murder his former friend, Fortunato, because he marred his family name, which proves that he is very psychotic. Insane, is the least you can say about Montresor, when he describes his premeditated murder. In the text it states, “I gave Fortunato no cause to doubt me. I continued to smile in his face, and he did not understand that I was now smiling at the thought of what I planned for him at the thought of
Pride, something commPride, something commonly referred to as man’s greatest sin, as it was pride that led to Adam and Eve's eventual fall from the blessed Garden Of Eden, which in turn caused the emergence of the original sin. Likewise, pride is also the sin of both Montresor and Fortunato in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Cask of Amontillado.” Montresor, insulted by Fortunato, and bound by the prideful Montressor name, seeks revenge for the insults Fortunato has burden upon him , all while recapping events told from his somewhat bias perspective. Doing so, the reader develops enough of a liking towards Amontillado that the uttermost fact that Amontillado is , without a doubt a cold-blooded murderer, is relatively not viewed as that much
In Edgar Allen Poe’s, “A Cask of Amontillado” it is filled with symbolism, irony and the suggestion of good versus evil. The narrator of the story, Montresor, hides behind a mask, he is part of a different world than others, and is out for revenge. Some might say that he is slick, diabolical, calculative man who is out for revenge with impunity. Being a descendant from a very powerful aristocratic family Montresor could not possibly let Fortunato insult him with impunity. As his family motto states, “Nemo me impune lacessit,” which means, no one attacks me with impunity. He never states what Fortunato did to deserve the ultimate punishment. He only states that Fortunato has caused him “a thousand injuries.” Montresor’s plan for revenge is very