Montresor's Insanity

Conflict: For Montresor to revenge himself for Fortunato’s insult, he has to get away with it – if Fortunato can revenge him back,

Revenge can bring out many people’s inner evil. In Edgar Allan Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado”, the main character, Montresor carefully plans revenge against Fortunato. Montresor is a man who vows vengeance against a professional wine taster named Fortunato. The wine taster insults Montresor, and he had enough of it. The insult sets him off and he plans a deadly and successful revenge. Throughout the story, Montresor attentively plans his revenge against Fortunato just like an expert.

Montresor is an evil person because he killed a man. In the story Montresor says ¨There were no attendants at home; they had absconded to make merry in honor of the time. I had told them that I should not return until the morning, and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house.¨ (Poe, 210) Montresor did not decide to kill Fortunato in the moment. He knew that he would kill him before he did it. This is revealed in the story, when Montresor orders his servants to leave his home, so there would be no witnesses to his plan. Another example to prove this is that Montresor brought a trowel with him into catacombs so that he could seal Fortunato into the wall with bricks and the trowel is used to spread mortar onto the bricks. People

Fortunato,” ‘I should like your opinion. But if you are too busy, I will get Luchesi’s advice. If anyone is a good judge, he is’”(Poe 68). The citation shows Montresor's deceitfulness since he is trying to guilt Fortunato to come with him. By saying he would like Fortunato's advice, it’s guilting Fortunato to come into the catacombs; only a brilliant and deceitful man could come up with this proposal. I can deduce that without Montresor's deviance, he would’ve never been able to trick Fortunato into the catacombs and to his death. Montresor's deceitfulness also fooled Fortunato to help him in carrying out his own death. Montresor tricks Fortunato into drinking for his cough, intoxicating him more and more with each sip. “I do not wish to alarm you-but you should take care of yourself. A drink of this Medoc will defend you from the damp”( Poe 69). This cite reveals how Montresor is tricking Fortunato into killing himself practically, and helping Montresor succeed. I can summarize that Montresor planned from the beginning to fool Fortunato into helping him by

It is indicated that in the past that Fortunato has hurt Montresor many times, “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.” However, there were never any insults or unkind acts actually mentioned in the story. It is exactly the opposite. Fortunato was friendly and helpful towards Montresor. From the very beginning of the story, one can obviously see that Montresor thinks that Fortunato has wronged him. “He had a weak point-this Fortunato-although in other regards he was a man to be respected and even feared.” This line shows that Montresor’s plan was well thought out. There is not any indication of what Fortunato thinks about Montresor. It can only be assumed that he trusts him do to the fact that he follows Montresor into the catacombs. It is up until the last moment, before the last brick is laid, that Fortunato believes this is all a joke. “Ha! Ha! Ha! – He! He! He! – a very good joke, indeed-an excellent jest.” Montresor is successful in his plan for vengeance. He succeeds in having Fortunato follow him into the catacombs and with great ease, had him up against the wall and shackled. Then tier-by-tier, Montresor constructed Fortunato’s tomb of bricks around him. When Montresor called out to him, he heard nothing and thus his plan was a success. “In pace requiescat!”

First, the theme of revenge is shown exceptionally clear by the very first line of the story, “The thousand injuries of Fortunato, I had borne the best I could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.” (Poe 236). This line clearly shows that Montresor takes significant pride in not only himself but his family as well. Due to this great pride, he refuses for his family name to be belittled in any way, shape, or form. As mentioned by Elena Baraban, “Montresor elaborates a sophisticated philosophy of revenge.” (Baraban 164). This

In the story, “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allen Poe, Montresor seeks revenge on Fortunato because he made fun of his family name. For years Montresor claims that Fortunato had, “hurt him”, so Montresor gets Fortunato drunk and tricks him into going to his house. When Fortunato arrives, they both go into Montresor’s basement and Montresor locks Fortunato up in addition to leaving him there to die. Montresor commits a crime by killing Fortunato in his own basement. Some people may argue that Montresor was a madman who only wanted to kill Fortunato because he made fun of Montresor’s family name; nevertheless, it is easy to see why one would believe that Montresor wasn’t a madman and that he had more motives rather than just that one reason to have killed Fortunato. What motivated Montresor to seek revenge on Fortunato was that he had made fun of Montresor’s Family name, had a drinking problem which causes him to lash out and say mean things to Montresor, and because Fortunato thought he knew more about fine wines than Montresor did. Theses motivations were also Fortunato’s weaknesses.

Montresor was seconded guessing himself, instead of feeling about the murder him and having relief, he would instead feel guilt. Montresor set his plan by sending his servants away to the carnival. He did this to make sure he had an alibi. While two of his men stay behind as they explore the deep vaults that are full of dead bodies of the Montresor family. He wants to bring Fortunato back to his house, but he refuses. Fortunato is accepting wine even though he is starting to get a cough. “The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled” (Page. 175, Line 51) Fortunato make this hand movement, that is apart of the masons. This is a secret handshake with the masons, but Montresor swears up and down that he knows mason. Montresor doesn't even know the handshake, but Fortunato wanted proof. Montresor shows him the handshake, but Fortunato doesn't buy it. So both of them went on there way.

Montresor is hurt from what Fortunato caused him and that is pain due to the things he has done to lead up to the events. It states “ THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat.”(Poe 1).  Montresor has hatred towards Fortunato, who caused damage inside him mentally making him want a form of revenge back at him. The mood of the story starts off with hatred, but now as Montresor and Fortunato are the catacombs causing the scene go to spooky. It says “Its walls had been lined with human remains piled to the vaults overhead in the fashion of the great catacombs of  Paris.”(Poe 5). Catacombs is a very odd place to look for wine because of what’s stored inside of it. One can see from this that Montresor and Fortunato have arrived to the catacombs which causes the mood of the story to change due to dead bodies surrounding them. Edgar Allan Poe expressed every detail and helped the readers envision the events with his mood changes.

Montresor antagonizes Fortunado through the whole story with the allure of the Amontillado. There are at least three occasions that Montresor talks of finding Lushesi instead of Fortunado to try the wine to authenticate it. Montresor obviously knew that it irritated Fortunado when he spoke of having Luchesi come to authenticate the wine. This was almost like a slap in the face for Fortunado and made him want to come to the tombs even more. This move by Montressor shows how desperate he is to keep Fortunado interested in coming to the tombs. It shows how he has calculated his plan of revenge and is trying to execute his master plan.

Montresor shows that he is a very astute and intelligent person throughout The Cask of Amontillado by using people so no one would discover his stealthy plan. An astute action that Montresor does is when he uses reverse psychology to get the attendants out of the Palazzo I know he knows that he is doing this on purpose because he says, “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.” Another intelligent thing he does to insure that his plan succeeds is when he keeps bringing up Luchesi when talking to Fortunado, he does this to make Fortunado stubborn and insist on following him into the catacombs. Therefore, we now know that Montresor was extremely clever and could easily play people to his advantage which made him even more dangerous since he's a ruthless lunatic.

The short story titled, “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe is a story that has a very dark atmosphere. The story starts off with Montresor wanting to seek revenge onto another man, Fortunato. He says he had been hurt by Fortunato “A thousand times.” He says how he wants to have his revenge on fortunato but does not want punishment for his actions. Montresor should be considered insane, not because he wants to kill Fortunato, but the way he goes through with it.

Montresor has held this grudge against his friend who according to him had given him “thousands of injuries.” This grudge he has makes him vindictive as he seeks revenge against Fortunato for his insult against him. His family’s motto is “Nemo me impune lacessit" meaning “No one attacks me with impunity”. The motto implies that the entire Montresor family history is filled with acts of revenge. Montresor becomes obsessed with his vengeance and when he has Fortunato chained to the wall he mocks at his cries and moaning, “I replied to the yells of him who clamored. I re-echoed, I aided, I surpassed them in volume and in strength.” Montrosor never mentions what the insulting act was which can tell us that the actual act wasn’t as important as him just getting some sort of revenge.

First, Montresor pretended to be Fortunato’s friend when he was planning on killing him the whole time. When they both are down in the catacombs Fortunato starts coughing like crazy and Montresor tells him that they should go back and that “your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved” (Poe 347). When Montresor tells Fortunato all these positive things he pushes back and says a cough is nothing and they should continue. Montresor knew that he would respond this way and was all part of his plan.

Montresor, starts the story by stating that he has been constantly insulted by his former acquaintance, Fortunato. He wants to execute his revenge, but in a way that doesn’t make him look suspicious. He knows Fortunato has an Achilles heel for wine and uses that weakness against him. Montresor manipulated Fortunato to go with him to explore ancient catacombs with promises of rich and finely aged wine, while treating him to regular wine along the way. He planned to have a trowel with him to easily set up the bricks to trap him and when Fortunato suggested Luchesi come with them, Montresor had a contingency plan to reassure Fortunato that he is a better wine taster than Luchesi. After Montresor gets Fortunato heavily intoxicated, he tries to