The Cask Of Amontillado :

Thematically very different, “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allen Poe and “A&P” by John Updike are both tales told through the eyes of one main character and one has to be conscious of how truthful and reliable those characters words are. However, while both stories are told in the first person, the reliability of both Montresor and Sammy differ greatly.

     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.

How would you feel if you were to die, plastered inside a wall? In the short story “The Cask of the Amontillado” written by Edgar Allan Poe, one of the characters die exactly like that. Montresor lures his former friend, Fortunato, into underground catacombs in a way that Fortunato couldn’t resist. Fortunato is very fond of wine, so Montresor tells him to follow him down to a vault where he could taste the Amontillado. From there, Fortunato falls into Montresor’s plan for revenge.

The lavish black roquelaire absorbed nearly all of the light in the surrounding area which perfectly made a silhouette of Montresor’s figure. The smell of nitre permeated throughout the air like a plague. The smell was so overpowering that I nearly passed out. As I hung there, bound to the wall by cold rusted chains, I could make out the twisted smile of Montresor as he removed his silken mask. I looked him in the eye and could see the hate behind them. It seemed to be more primal and real than anything else I had ever seen. After staring me down, Montresor hastily produced that godforsaken trowel from underneath his cloak and started to lay layer after layer of brick, starting to enclose me into this horrible room. My last view of Montresor

Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne focus on concepts that relate to the darker side of the human experience by creating characters that embody the relationship between evil and abnormal psychology. “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe and “The Birth-Mark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne feature characters that engage in an abnormal or unusual behavior and suffer from a flawed, obsessive psyche that causes them to commit evil or immoral acts. Montresor and Aylmer, the two main characters of each short story, both exhibit obsessive-compulsive behavior with one character fixated on revenge and vengeance and the other attempting to transcend the limits of human capabilities by altering nature to achieve “perfection.” Poe and Hawthorne are suggesting

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.

Many times, the word pride has a negative connotation attached to it. The reason being, is that too much pride skews the perception of reality. This concept is underlined in Edgar Allen Poe’s story, “The Cask of Amontillado,” through the character Fortunato. Montresor allows Fortunato opportunities to escape from his deceitful plan, but Fortunato’s pride gets in the way. Although the emphasis in “The Cask of Amontillado” seems to be focused around Montresor’s revengeful murder of Fortunato, a closer look at the tone, structure, and setting of the story, reveals that Fortunato’s pride and unhealthy lifestyle is what ultimately leads to his demise. Through this we begin to understand that too much pride in one’s life blinds him or her from reality.

“The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, is a story driven by revenge as Montresor carries out his plan to avenge his families “Motto”. Not to mention the families honor would be repaired, by the death of Fortunato. What a “Perfect Season” to put forth his morbid plan; “The Carnival Season, The Season of Madness”. Therefore, there are many symbols hidden within The Cask of Amontillado to explain the emotions of the story, such as, “the period”, “character Names”, and “Fortunato’s Costume”.

In the Cask of Amontillado, Montresor, the protagonist of this story, has been wronged by Fortunato. Montresor feels very strongly about this transgression that Fortunato doesn’t recall. His revenged involved using one of Fortunato’s weaknesses against him. Fortunato boasted that he was a connoisseur of fine wines. One night, Montresor told him about a cask of Amontillado he had recently purchased that he wasn’t sure was genuine. Montresor then says that he was going to meet another friend named Luchesi, who could authenticate the wine. Fortunato in a drunken state, proclaims that they would go to Montresor’s vault which contained the Amontillado. Montresor attempts to convince him that his cough and cold might become worse being down in the cold, damp vaults with the niter. After insisting that he was fine, both men venture into the depths of Montresor’s family catacombs. After being in the catacombs for a short bit, Fortunato begins to cough and Montresor gives him a type of red wine to cover the cough and to continue to intoxicate him. Montresor’s family had a great deal of members and created a long walk. Fortunato asks what his coat of arms is and Montresor replies with their motto that is “No one assails me with impunity”. Fortunato begins to cough against and Montresor opens another bottle of wine, to which he empties it almost immediately. Fortunato then does a hand gesture that Montresor doesn’t understand. Fortunato says that you must not be of the brotherhood of

"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." With these ferverous words from the introductory paragraph of Edgar Allan Poe's Cask of Amontillado, the story of Montresor's revenge begins. Poe repeatedly stresses the need for revenge due to bitterness and resentment in Montresor's character towards Fortunato, but more importantly, stress is placed on revenge by which the victim realizes their injustice towards the redresser. Unfortunately, it seems that Montresor is denied this pure and encompassing revenge when his victim,

In The Cask of Amontillado Montresor lived for fifty years after killing Fortunato and he narrates the events of the story coldly and that leads some to wonder whether or not Montresor has changed and if he has changed how did he change. Over the fifty years between the events of The Cask Of Amontillado and the time when Montresor narrates the story, time changed Montresor into a guilty and shamed man that may have PTSD.

“The Cask of Amontillado” is a very attention-grabbing and shocking short story written by Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was born in Boston in 1809 and orphaned by both parents at the age of two. He was taken in by the Allan family, and even though he was never legally adopted, the Allan family still treated Edgar as their own child. Edgar had a failed military career, and this lead him to becoming an author. He is best known for his poetry and short stories. In his story of “The Cask of Amontillado” the ending leaves you with a tale of murder committed with no witnesses and no one ever finding the resting place of Fortunato.

" The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe shares similarities with my "Scared of the dark" occurrence because Fortunato and I trusted our dear friends, but were misled in the long run. Being misled is absolutely dreadful, especially when you're misled into becoming afraid of the dark. Four years ago, my friend told me about creatures and spirits that lurk during the night, which I believed of course. This caused quite a few negative effects. One of which was that I started to loathe the nighttime.

Through the use of a dark, mysterious setting in both stories, Poe begins forming the overall conflict of an ingrained aspiration to acquire revenge. In Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado”, the story begins on an Italian street during the season of carnival, a celebration in which jesters dressed in colorful costumes and masks. While the festival seems joyous and gleeful, its allowance for such brilliant costumes and a generous amount of alcohol provides the means and opportunity for crime to take place: “It was dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend [Fortunato]. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man wore motley” (Levine 715). Being such a chaotic season

In the cask of amontillado the author Edgar Allan Poe uses a number of tones to address his main idea which is revenge. The following tones are relevant this context. He uses irony when Montresor is putting the bricks to cover the wall and fortunate tells him “let us be gone “its ironical that Fortunato thought he was putting all those bricks in place just to remove them again. Montresor’s reply “yes let’s be gone” is even more ironical when he says that and puts the last brick .He uses horror when Montresor describes the bones and smell of human remain. The writer also uses a sarcastic tone in his description for example when he jokes about how he gets his helpers out of his house .one can say that his sinister character brings life to the story since it is somewhat funny until a reader gets to the part where he gets completely out