Literature about Evil
The purpose of this paper is to introduce, discuss, and analyze the short stories "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allen Poe and "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Specifically it will discuss the phenomenon of evil in the human heart as it appears in these two works. Evil lives in everyone, whether they want to acknowledge it or not. These two chilling tales show two different sides of evil, but they both illustrate how evil can corrupt a person right down to their very heart and soul.
The narrator, Montresor, in "The Cask of Amontillado" is so evil in his heart that he must gain revenge over his adversary at all costs. His family motto is "Nemo me impune lacessit [No one assails me with impunity]," and he feels his friend Fortunato has somehow insulted this honor, and so he seeks the ultimate revenge. He walls his friend up inside a cellar and leaves him there to die. Clearly, the narrator is insane, and that is a commonality between these two stories. Both the protagonists are insane or mad, for whatever reason. Goodman Brown goes mad in the forest when he believes he has encountered the devil, and the reader never knows what sets Montresor off, except it is some kind of insult. The authors are very skillful in making both these men quite unsympathetic characters, and that heightens the sense of evil surrounding them both.
Montresor may seem to be the more evil in nature, but Goodman Brown has his own issues of evil to
What can a character that lived in 1700s Italy have in common with a teenager in the 1960s? Though it may seem impossible Edgar Allan Poe’s character Montresor in The Cask of Amontillado shares similar characteristics to John Updike’s A&P teenage Sammy. Both of these characters share sarcastic tendencies and a need to make a name of himself. Though, each man differs in the way he goes about making that name. While Montresor decides murder is the way, Sammy quits his job to be noticed.
To develop the analytical paper about the text “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, some sources will be used to support the thesis statement, which is “The author uses irony in the text to illustrate the murder of Fortunado by Montresor, who seeks salvation through death”. Also, there is going to be an analysis on the irony found in the text in relation with the story. To support this thesis, I am going to use some examples from some sources such as “Literary analysis: Irony in The Cask of Amontillado" by Amelia Tibbett, “Irony in "The Cask of Amontillado” by Kerry Michael Wood, and “Poe 's Short Stories Summary and Analysis” by Bella Wang , and the text will be written in the third person.
Feuds and arguments between individuals who may disagree with or dislike one another are a common occurrence in everyday life, often varying in degrees of intensity, but rarely reaching a point of extremity. However, in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Cask of Amontillado”, This threshold of extremity is reached by the narrator of the story, Montresor, who explains that his acquaintance, Fortunato, has repeatedly and irreparably insulted him over the course of years, and uses it as justification to take justice into his own hands and seek retribution through murder, despite there being no proof of Fortunato's guilt other than Montresor’s claims. His motive for murdering Fortunato can be attributed to his state of mind, as Montresor’s lack of guilt, empathy, or remorse highlights him as a character with psychopathic tendencies. As the story progresses, Montresor’s cold and calculating nature leaves the audience full of dread and suspense while he lures the oblivious Fortunato towards his inevitable demise. The employment of rhetorical devices such as irony, theme, and structure builds the suspense for the ultimate climax of Poe’s gothic masterpiece.
Is killing someone justifiable? In Edgar Allen Poe’s short story The Cask of Amontillado that question is one that could be asked. The short story is about a man named Montresor and his quest to get revenge on his foe Fourtando who has apparently insulted Montresor. Around the time of the carnival season Montresor leaves his house to go find Fourtando and get his revenge he tells none of his servants to leave his house, but Montresor knows once that he has left the servants will leave and go to the carnival. Montresor who is dressed in all black finds a intoxicated Fourtando who is a professional wine taster, and then Montresor claims to have some Amontillado wine but he is not sure whether is genuine or if it s a fraud. In order to intimidate Fortunato and to lure him in, Montresor tells him he is going to get Luchresi another wine taster in the area, but Fortunato tells him no thus Montresor plan comes together and then he leads hims to the catacombs and chains Fortunato up where he leaves him to die. In my opinion the first question should be what did Fortunato do that was so bad for Montresor to want to and eventually kill him? Then the next question would be was the killing justifiable? In my opinion the killing was not justifiable. The reason the killing was not justifiable is because of the fact that nobody deserves to die such a brutal death. Another reason why the killing
<br>The Cask of Amontillado is a horror short story, which revolves around the themes of revenge and pride. The plot involves two men: Montresor, the narrator, who is an Italian aristocrat seeking revenge against the second main character: Fortunato, a proud man that boasts about his conoisseurship of wines and who finally walks to his own death.
The author of “The Cask of Amontillado,” Edgar Allan Poe, lets us know in the opening sentence that the character telling the story, Montresor, vows revenge. Montresor’s target of revenge is Fortunato, but Montresor never specifically says what Fortunato did to him or his family. However, Montresor’s fear of Fortunato avenging any threat of revenge leads us to believe his plan is well thought out and executed in a very matter of fact way. Seeking this revenge on Fortunato has not made Montresor feel guilty for what he has done. It seems as if revenge is just part of his nature. Throughout the story, it seems as if Montresor has every bit of his revenge on Fortunato planned out. He could not have chosen a
In his writing, Edgar Allan Poe has multiple uses of direct and indirect characterization. In The Cask of Amontillado, Montresor had rules such as “I must not only punish but punish with impunity. 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” (Poe, 2). Poe used indirect characterization to show the reader that Montresor is an unreliable narrator because he justified his actions or in this case, murder, to the reader using rules that he created for himself. Poe revealed to us that Fortunato looked at Montresor “…with two filmy orbs that distilled the rheum of intoxication” and “the wine sparkled in his eyes…” (“The Cask of Amontillado “6, 8). It is revealed to the reader that Fortunato was drunk. Fortunato and Montresor are both full of pride. Fortunato “prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine” and Montresor considered himself as “skillful in the Italian vintages” (Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado” 3). When Fortunato “ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge” (Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado” 2). Montresor is vengeful and creates rules for killing with impunity. Poe also showed indirect characterization in Hopfrog. The king had known that “Hop-Frog was not fond of wine; for it excited the poor cripple almost to madness, and madness is no comfortable feeling. But the king loved his practical jokes, and took pleasure in forcing Hop-Frog to drink, in
Amontillado is a classically known amber-colored, medium-dry sherry wine, and in the case of Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado, it is the taste for Amontillado that results in the unfortunate and rather untimely death of Fortunato at the hands of the maniacal Montresor. Revenge is something that no one should have to experience; however, sadly sometimes, it is an inevitability that cannot be avoided. The Cask of Amontillado exposes Poe’s dark side and cruelty towards society and the world. In this short story, Poe tells about a rich drunk man, Fortunato, picking on a not-so rich friend, Montresor, but things quickly take a turn when Montresor decides to take out his revenge against his “pal.” Poe uses ethos, logos, and pathos deeply throughout his storyline to enhance the story and better the imagination of the characters, the deep meaning behind the setting, and the Amontillado’s secret.
The short story “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe shows how Montresor wanting revenge and Fortunato's pride as a wine taster, contributes to Fortunato's death. The theme of revenge is introduced early in the short story when Montresor explains how he is planning his revenge on Fortunato. While the theme of pride is shown, Fortunato's pride is to test Montresor's Amontillado. In the short story “The Cask of Amontillado” displays the theme of revenge when Montresor says, “THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge” (1).
Young Goodman Brown has arranged to meet a man in secret and although he may not like the man, he does not plan to kill him. In contrast, Montresor meets a man in public and plans on killing him because he dislikes him. After both of the meetings, the characters handle the dark secrets of their experiences differently. Montresor holds onto his secret and shows little emotion about what happened that night. On the other hand, Brown begins to resent his peers and even his family. In addition, what Montresor had done paled in comparison to what Brown underwent. Yet, Montresor, unlike Brown, could not contain the secret any longer. Finally, Brown was religious with a family and did not have a negative reputation. In contrast, Montresor had vowed to murder Fortunato and sought revenge against a man he did not
Edgar Allen Poe had many pieces of literature, but one in particular “The Cask of Amontillado” reflected his personality. It is a short story that can be read easily, and can take on many ironies. The several ironies can point to the fact that Poe himself was implanted into the story as he was a mysterious man. There are several characters with different personalities often interpreted as Poe hiding his dark side which would be “Montresor”. The other personality Fortunato could be that drunken personality Poe was trying to hide.
Is there anything that someone could do to you that would cause you to commit murder? Could you get away with it? Montresor is the murderous narrator who has committed the perfect murder in just such a tale, “The Cask of Amontillado.” Montresor plots and kills an unwary friend/foe during carnival time for motives that are unclear. The author of this tale, Edgar Allan Poe, influenced by his somewhat tragic life and one of the most influential Gothic writers, uses symbolism and irony to show the multitude of complicated motives of the narrator in his famous horror story.
In The Cask of Amontillado, the narrator, Montresor, is seeking revenge on Fortunato, a man who has offended him one too many times. Montresor lures an already drunken Fortunato into the catacombs beneath his house with the enticing idea of trying some amontillado that he
An unreliable narrator is a character who is telling a story, but is not completely accurate or credible due to problems with the character 's mental state or maturity. The unreliable narrator holds a distorted view of the events taking place. This distortion gives readers a chance to offer their own interpretations to the story being told. Unreliable narration is valuable to the reader and satisfying to the author because the audience must look beyond what the narrator is portraying and view all the elements of the read to understand the author 's message. The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman are great examples of unreliable narration.
Poe uses the dark side of human nature to create a demoralizing and daunting story in both “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” In “The Cask of Amontillado,” one can see that the dark side of human nature is conveyed through Montresor’s actions of murdering his enemy, Fortunato. As seen in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the dark side of human the race is shown through the protagonists dark and treacherous actions resulting in the death of an innocent, old man. The dark side of human nature, and the dreadful actions that are taken within the stories, are prime examples of the devilish and demonic forces within our world. The dark side of human nature is expressed in “The Cask of Amontillado and “The Tell-Tale Heart” through the protagonist’s actions of guilt, deceit and insanity.