The Perfect Crime In Edgar Allen Poe's The Cask Of Amontillado

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When you ask a person to describe a perfect crime the first words that might come to their mind are “quick”, “easy”, and maybe even “silent”. In the short story of “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allen Poe the main character Montresor kills Fortunato, his arch enemy. Montresor state’s that the acts committed are his version of a perfect crime, or so he thinks. Montresor has his own set of rules to follow to commit his perfect crime, as would any other criminal. These rules are stressed in Montresor 's elaborate plan to ensure that he has committed the perfect crime he pictured it to be. But as you go deeper into the story you start to question some of these rules, and realize that Montresor has not committed what he believes is a perfect crime. The short story starts off by Montresor stating the rules to follow to commit his version of the perfect crime. One of the rules incorporated in his plan was that the punisher must punish the victim without getting caught. “I must not only punish, but punish with impunity” (1238). Montresor has strategically …show more content…

“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” (1238). In this case Forunato has insulted and publicly humiliated Montresor multiple time, and in doing so he has pay for his actions in Montror’s eyes. “The thousand injuries of Fortuanto I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge” (1238). This is the only rule we see in the short story that is upheld by the avenger. When Montresor took Fortuanto down into the catacombs Fortuanto was very intoxicated. But when Montresor trapped him and started building the wall he quickly became sober and started to realize what was being done to him, and by

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