The Cask Of Amontillado Essay

     In “The Cask of Amontillado” Edgar Allan Poe takes us on a journey into the mind of a mad man. The story relates a horrible revenge made even more horrible by the fact that the vengeance is being taken when no real offense had been given. In a short space and with ultimate technical skill, Poe creates a nightmare, guaranteed to give the reader a sleepless night.

In the text montresor says”my heart grew sick on account of the dampness of the catacombs”(poe 67). Montresor is saying he feels bad for what he is doing and he feels sick in his heart To where he doesn't want to go through with it. But he thinks to the fact that he has made fun of him. In that case he continued down the catacombs and on with the murder. He thinks he is going to bring justice to himself but he loves the fact that he is taking Fortunato to his death. James F. Cooney says “ He seems to be unaware but the reader is not ,of the gleeful tone of his confession”(Cooney 15 ). At first Montresor acts as though he does not know what he is doing wrong. Suddenly he feels sick and knows he is wrong but thinks to when fortunato mad fun of him and feels no longer

An important element in any story is setting. Authors use setting to convey certain feelings brought on by the character’s surroundings. It also subliminally serves to illustrate the character’s intentions. In “The Cask of Amontillado” Edgar Allen Poe uses the dark, imposing setting to do just that, communicate the underlying theme of the story, being death, revenge and deception.

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!”

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.

Poe’s 1846 work, “The Cask of Amontillado,” details the manipulative and vengeful actions of the narrator, Montresor, including luring his victim, Fortunato, into his family catacombs with alcohol in order to bury him alive. Poe reflects his foster father as the murderer of the story, and shows the sardonicism of his life through dramatic and verbal irony. When Poe was in school, his foster mother died. She instructed her husband to wait until Poe returned home before her burial, but John Allan disregarded this and buried her before Poe returned. Although the real-life event is not as literal as Poe describes in his work, both his foster mother and Fortunato are prematurely buried. The exaggeration of his foster mother’s death is shown

We soon see foreshadowing of Fortunato's impending doom when the issue of Montresor's shield of arms is brought into the conversation as "A huge human foot d'or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel.". Even more appropriate is Montresor's family motto, translated as, "No one wounds me with impunity". Such a visual depiction and mental conviction due to family honor and history creates all the more impetus in Montresor to carry out the punishment that Fortunato deserves for wronging him, and more likely the family honor. When Montresor finally captures Fortunato in the catacombs, the climax of his precisely calculated deed, he revels in the sound of Fortunato's chains rattling, and "that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labors and sat down upon the bones". However, his satisfaction soon turns to apprehension when suddenly "a succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back". He hesitates at this moment, when his revenge is sweetest, when he should bask in the suffering of his "enemy", and finds himself contemplating the shrill screams of his captive! He does eventually compose

Writer Kurt Vonnegut created eight tips that should be applied for any great story. In the short story, “The Cask of Amontillado”, by Edgar Allen Poe three of these tips are applied. Included in this story are: do not waste the reader’s time, each character must want something, and to be a sadist. Using these three tips makes Poe’s work a gripping short story that reveals how powerful words can be and that they can come with severe consequences. Also, that there can always be a lesson to be learned no matter the circumstances. This story illustrates a man’s revenge on the circumstance of an insult by a friend and how he decides to react to it.

In the story "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe, he writes about a man named Montressor who for some reason (one that we do not know) vows revenge on a well respected and even feared guy named Fortunato, to better understand the story though you will want to know about the author Edgar Allen Poe. Edgar Allen Poe has been a huge influence to many writers in short stories. Most of his tales deal with detective, and gothic horror tales, and in most of his tales readers live the story through first person narrator like in "The Cask of Amontillado" who tells the tale. The fact

The Cask of Amontillado is considered to be one of the best short stories. Written by Edgar Allan Poe in first person and having all the main events as a three hundred page fiction book, The Cask of Amontillado is a complete novel. This short story has several themes which function from the first page of the story such as: suspense, fear, and revenge.

The entire story is based on dramatic irony, with Montresor vowing revenge in the opening sentence, and Fortunato remaining ignorant until his fate (and tomb) had already been sealed. Slightly later Montresor says “"It must be understood that neither

Fortunato was an older man who was both sick and drunk at the time. In Montresor’s confession, he states, “ He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells... It is not the engagement, but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted.”

Edgar Allan Poe’s, “The Cask of Amontillado” (1846) is narrated by Montressor. He is a gothic narrator, as his motives are associated with revenge and mental instability. In fact, the story opens with Montressor’s description of revenge of his friend Fortunato, who supposedly “insulted” him, and he lures Fortunato to his family’s catacombs for his death. However, Montressor is unwilling to reveal Fortunato’s insult and he is uncertain of why he wants to commit the horrendous act. Montressor’s narration is unreliable, and as the story unfolds we deduce his mental state. By carefully analyzing the tale, Montressor’s psychological dilemma encourages us to find the missing pieces of the puzzle and interpret the events in a metaphorical sense suggesting that the events are far less associated with revenge but more with Montressor’s guilt.

The setting creates the enviornment for the entire story, the time and the place. Every single part of the story revolves around this. What the characters look like, how they talk to eachother, where they live, what is going on around them. The main conflict is even determined by the time period and where in the world it takes place. For example, the story "The Cask of Amontillado" is set in Paris, France around the rennaissance era. but theres more to the setting than just that. "It was about dusk one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that i encountered with my friend." This describes more about the enviornment around the characters in the beggining of the story. Then the setting shifts,"Its walls had been lined with

It is easy to question the Montresor’s sanity early in the story as the character smiles at the thought of the Fortunato’s immolation. He has joyful bliss with ideas and thoughts of Fortunato’s demise. In his mind, he is truly mistreated by the Fortunato and the act of slow execution offers a satisfaction too fulfil his desire of vengeance. The character has no moral conflict, he feels he was correcting a wrongful event that occurred in his life. Though a wine cellar would be cool and dark catacomb like, I don’t think there is any appropriate time that is normal to be that comfortable surrounded in human remains. The Fortunato had no reason to suspect the ill will of things to come, in actuality he did nothing wrong. The eeriness of the catacomb setting in hindsight should have alarmed the Fortunato.