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The Cask of Amontillado main character
Why is the theme of revenge so evident in the cask of amontillado
Narrator of the cask of amontillado
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The short story that best utilizes withheld information, unreliable narrator, shocking twist, and foil is, “The Cask of Amontillado”. In “The Cask of Amontillado,” the author utilizes these techniques to create a tense atmosphere that makes the reader want to know more or guess what is going to happen next. “The Cask of Amontillado” utilizes the technique of withholding information. An example of withholding information in the story would be What kind of injuries did Fortunato make to Montresor to make Montresor want to seek revenge so badly. Another example would be why did Montresor decide to bury Fortunato alive in a brick wall? Why didn’t he choose to kill Fortunato a different way?
Another technique that was utilized very well was an
“The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe is a mystery that offers great suspense and interest. This is because of the irony that Poe creates and the setting that makes a dangerous mood and foreshadows the victim’s death. In the beginning of the story, the narrator meets a man named Fortunato at an Italian carnival with the intentions for murdering him in the foreseeable future. The narrator talks with Fortunato saying, “My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met,” (1). These first words spoken by the narrator show verbal irony because the narrator is not really saying that they met luckily. In fact, as I stated before, the narrator was planning this encounter, with the plan ending with Fortunato’s death. This proves to be suspenseful for the reader because they want to discover Fortunato’s actual fate while wishing they could tell Fortunato of the
In Edgar Allan Poe’s, “The Cask of Amontillado,” the main character and narrator, Montresor begins the story by expressing how he has put up with many insults from a man named Fortunato and that he has had enough and vows revenge against him. Montresor lures Fortunato into the catacombs to taste the Amontillado so as to kill him secretly. Montresor portrays in the beginning of the story that he is going to be lying to Fortunato’s face, acting one way while really thinking another. This fact indicates that Montresor is an unreliable narrator for telling the story because he lies to people he knows, gives hints that he is jealous of Fortunato, does not offer an explanation for wanting to murder Fortunato and his tone of narrating the story.
A Cask of Amontillado beautifully exemplifies this topos: the murderer, Montresor plans to kill his friend as he has been offended too many times by Fortunato. Now at least, he had an ’intelligible’ motive to kill Fortunato. In Tell-Tale Heart however, there is no clear-cut hint that the protagonist wants to get even with the old man (or the eye). Despite the lack of vengeance in the murder, the killer’s mind and the old man’s ghost gets revenged on the narrator, as our killer goes mad and confesses everything to the police.
As a story opens, an unnamed narrator first words says, “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.”(164) Montresor who tells a story is taking revenge on Fortunato because he has suffered a “thousand injuries” although he never mentions exactly what happened. Edgar Allan Poe creates a perfect crime in a murder story “The Cask of Amontillado” through the use of a character that exhibits characteristics of a psychopath, a horrifying plot and a dramatic irony.
In the “The Cask of Amontillado,” Montresor believes Fortunado is his greatest enemy and in return for revenge he must kill him. He achieves his goal through a depraved plan, in which he manipulated Fortunado to drink until he lost his senses for the amontillado. In “Tell-Tale Heart,” Poe depicts the murderer has no valid reason to kill the old man. The murderer’s sanity comes into question many times when the story takes place. The first sentence in the story proves this statement: “TRUE! – NERVOUS – VERY, VERY DREADFUL nervous I had been and am; but why will you say I am mad?” (Charter 1127). The narrator himself questions the audience before telling the incident that has occurred. In this story, the murder plot is not planned and takes place all of the sudden when the insane man decides to kill the fragile old man who is on the alert
A narrator is considered one who tells a story and if a narrator is unreliable, the story is most likely written in first person. An illustration that provides an unreliable narrator is “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe. “The Cask of Amontillado” is tol...
Fortunato doesn’t want to go over “it is not the engagement, but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted.’ The vaults are insufferably damp.’ They are encrusted with nitre” (4). Fortunato sensed that Montresor is inviting him over to get back at him for the thousand injuries he has done to him. Montresor plan is to get him in the vaults and slowly as they keep walking through the catacombs, letting the nitre Fortunato is inhaling kill him. As they walk through the catacombs Fortunato starts cough impatiently trying to gasp for air, but let’s Montresor know it is nothing. This shows how Montresor deceives Fortunato into thinking it’s a friendly walk through the catacombs as he is drinking some of the Amontillado he promised to offer him that’s causing Fortunato to have a sever cough. They reach a point in which Fortunato collapses on the ground because it gets hard for Fortunato to breathe, in addition he is super intoxicated. Montresor sees his opportunity and takes advantage to chain Fortunato from his ankle “a moment more and I had fettered him to the granite” (8). While Fortunato is tied up, Montresor builds a wall so he could conceal him in the catacombs “I had completed the eight, the
Short stories have particular settings to supplement their themes. The eerie catacombs during a carnival in “The Cask of Amontillado” supplement the themes of revenge, and deception, which the protagonist takes responsibility in; whereas in “Hills Like White Elephants”, the atmosphere around the Spanish train station emphasizes the themes of miscommunication between characters and their evasion of responsibilities.
In “The Cask of Amontillado,” the reader can tell the narrator is unreliable. The narrator shows this through his lack of reason for killing Fortunato. Also, the narrator indicates that he is unreliable when he laughs as he kills Fortunato; only a madman would laugh while killing someone. The narration of the story makes it so the reader questions why the narrator killed Fortunato. Another question most readers have is, why is the narrator sharing this story? Also, readers commonly ask themselves, what has happened to make him share this story? The narrator says, “For half of a century no mortal has disturbed them” (Poe 113). This statement by the narrator may make a reader feel that Fortunato’s body has been moved or found. Likewise, it may make a reader feel that the narrator is bragging to someone about getting away with murder because he is possibly on his
In his article “On Memory Forgetting, and Complicity in “the Cask of Amontillado”” Raymond DiSanza suggests that an act of wrongdoing is always at the heart of good horror stories. (194) DiSanza’s article on “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe describes Poe’s writing in a way I didn’t think of myself. DiSanza finds Poe’s language in this story to “taste like amontillado: smooth, slightly sweet, and appropriately chilled”. (DiSanza 195) Throughout his article he mostly talks about what possibly could have been Montresor’s motive to kill Fortunato? And why did Montresor wait fifty years to tell the story?
In ‘unreliable narration’ the narrator’s account is at odds with the implied reader's surmises about the story’s real intentions. The story und...
and his family, Montresor retaliated by plotting to kill him. Montresor thought of Fortunato as a
Carefully, cautiously the Montresor plotted precisely how he would exact revenge upon Fortunato. Much time and great energy was devoted to this plan, selecting a time that would be best: during carnival when the town would be celebratory, his servants apt to run off and join the celebration, when the two could silently disappear without notice or question. No detail is forgotten; he allows for no deterrents. He follows through with such a confidence that never does he stumble or hesitate in carrying out his plan. The Montresor indicates that he had never given. To continue with this ploy, he even goes so far as to express false concern for Fortunato as they pass through the catacombs. Blaming the nitre and damp, the Montresor suggests that they turn back as not to compromise Fortunato’s ill health, though he has no intent of doing so. Never once until the very end did Fortunato have cause to suspect that there were any foul plans afoot.
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
Readers frequently wonder while reading a fiction book, if the character could live in the real world. In the short story, The Cask of Amontillado, written by Edgar Allan Poe, the relevancy of the question that could be applied flawlessly. Although Fortunato is not the main character, he plays an important role in the overall plot structure. Fortunato, the antagonist who is a greedy and untrustworthy man, is arguably a believable character. This is because of his motivation, character traits, and the irony that is correlated with his situation.