In Edgar Allen Poe’s story The Cask of Amontillado the main character Montresor tricks his friend Fortunato into his catacombs and buries him alive. Edgar Allen Poe’s character commits this deed out of a need for revenge because of some hurt that was committed against him. Poe conveys this need for revenge through his attention to the small details within his story.
Poe’s naming of his characters was not something that happened by chance. Poe used names that had specific meanings and translations that would match well with his two characters. “Tresor comes from thesaurus, meaning a storehouse or hoard; Fortunato derives from fortunatus, translated as made prosperous or happy” (Gruesser). In the story Montresor not only has a literal storehouse, his family catacomb, but he is also storing his hurt in his heart which is why he is overwhelmed with hatred and his need for revenge. Fortunato is dressed as a jester and ready to have a fun time. This happiness and carefree persona matched the derivative of what his name means. Poe uses these names as almost a foreshadowing to what is to come in the future. Montresor is storing away his anger and Fortunato has no anger in him, which adds fuel to Montresor’s need for revenge.
The type of wine that Poe uses in his story is also not by random. Amontillado sherry takes a lot of time to produce and it requires a very delicate and precise process to make. The reason Poe chose to use this wine is because just like the process of making Amontillado sherry, Montresor plan to punish Fortunato was very precise and long thought out down to the last detail. Michael Jay Lewis said in his own paper, “we can see several links between the process of creating amontillado and Montresor’s process of kil...
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... details to demonstrate one man’s need for revenge. He choses the characters names, the wine, and how they are dressed all for the very specific purpose of revealing their character and their intent. Poe’s attention to this detail is what intensifies the awareness of how badly Montresor is set of getting his revenge on Fortunato.
Works Cited
Gruesser, John. “Poe’s ‘The Cask Of Amontillado’.” Explicator 56.3 (1998): 129-130.
MLA International Bibliography. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
Lewis, Michael Jay. “Refining A Fortunato Amontillado.” Explicator 69.4 (2001): 179
183. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 10 Mar. 2014
Platizky, Roger. “Poe’s ‘The Cask Of Amontillado’.” Explicator 57.4 (1994): 206-209.
MLA International Bibliography. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.
Poe, Edgar A. "The Cask of Amontillado”.1846. Web. 21 Mar. 2014.
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With a premeditated motive to commit such an act, the culprit, Montressor, thinks, constructs and orchestrates a presumed murder against his insulter, Fortunado. “Poe begins by describing, in characteristically precise and logical detail, Montresor’s (and Poe’s) idea of perfect revenge. At the same time, he needed to end his story by telling how his revenge had affected him. When Fortunatosays, “For the love of god, Montresor!” and Montresor repeats, “Yes, for the love of God,” Poe is indicating that Montresor is already experiencing the closure he sought”(Delaney 39) Unbeknownst why he wants retribution, or what it is that his victim has done to compel Montressor to kill him. What is given is a recount of the night under discussion.
Fortunato has previously had more power over Montresor and the entirety of The Cask of Amontillado is the shifting of power from Fortunato to Montresor and this is all shown through wine. One way Poe shows the shifting balance of power is through the amount of wine Montresor drinks, one of the best quotes to represent this is when Fortunato and Montresor are walking through the wine cellar and Montresor pulls a wine bottle from a row and writes, ““Drink,” I said, presenting him the wine. He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me familiarly, while his bells jingled” (181). The bells jingled is a nod to the jester 's costume that Fortunato is wearing and the jingling of the bells while Fortunato is taking a drink symbolizes how he is becoming more and more of a fool. The more drunk fortunato is, the less power he has compared to Montresor. Another example of Poe using wine to show the transfer of power is a few lines down when he writes. “The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled. My own fancy grew warm with the Medoc. We had passed through long walls of piled skeletons, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost recesses of the catacombs” (181). Again Poe uses both wine and the jingling of the bells to capitalize on how Fortunato is being duped. There is also a lot of foreshadowing her because the walls are piled with skeletons, but fortunato is not able to
Have you ever met someone so clever, determined, and cruel to leave a man to die over an insult? Montresor is the perfect example of these character traits. In “The Cask of Amontillado”, by Edgar Allan Poe, Montresor uses all of these character traits to get revenge on Fortunado for insulting his family name. Montresor’s clever planning, determination for revenge, and cruel murder are the perfect combination for his unequaled revenge.
The characteristics that assemble in Fortunato are the ones that Montresor despises and wants to lock away and leave to die. One may wonder, whether these traits are not the very part of himself. In Retapping Poe’s “... ... middle of paper ... ... raves retribution, a murder transforms into a partial suicide.
How simple, indeed--at least until we examine a group of irreconcilable paradoxes in the story. To begin with, the names Montresor and Fortunato are synonymous. (Hoffman 223) Secondly, we find that the motive for the crime was some unnamed insult. Motives for killing someone should be important enough to detail. Why does Poe have Montresor gloss over the motives? One view is that Montresor relates the details of the murder not to justify his actions, but as a form of confession. But if this be confession, where is the regret? Again, Poe leaves his readers mystified concerning the time and location for issuance of the narrative voice. If Montresor still lives, he must be a very old man. If so, the phantasms of his deed may have horrified him all of his life. Then why does he not seem horrified? If this be confession, then why does he seem not penitent?
Poe uses the aspects of dramatic and verbal irony, foreshadowing and symbolism to shape his tale of revenge. Fortunato's fate is death and Montresor tries to make his intentions seem honorable. His intentions were not honorable, just evil. He does however, manage to get what he set out for, revenge.
The protagonists Montresor wants to get back at Fortunato for deeply insulting him and Montresor vows for revenge. During the fall carnival, he sees his opportunity and is quick to pounce on this and put his plan into place. “With Fortunato intoxicated and falling and stumbling all over the place Montresor knows that the time is now” (Russell 211). Montresor knows Fortunato’s weakness for wine and Montresor tells him he found Amontillado a very rare wine and it is in his vault. Montresor knows how far Fortunato will go for wine as rare as Amontillado and that is what eventually leads to his tormented and revengeful death. Edgar Allan Poe also gives lots of scenes that foreshadow to the future and the plotting about the death of Fortunato and the steps leading up to it. “The great example is putting Montresor into the future fifty years later telling the story and everything that went into the murder that he had committed” (Elliot 268). Poe depicts that revenge is very sweet and even fifty years later, that the deep gothic death and revenge themes still show up in Poe’s writings (Russell
Poe's, The Cask of Amontillado is a story about fear and revenge. The story begins with Montressor's vow of revenge, foreshadowing future actions. "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could; but when he ventured upon insult vowed revenge..." Montressor had to be sure not to raise suspicion of what he was going to do Fortunato. Montressor knew that Fortunato had a weakness that he could use towards his advantage.
Accordingly, Poe is well responsive to this psychological trait of the human brain. Likewise, Poe employs the perception of perversity and remorse in “The Cask of Amontillado.” The reason of burying Fortunato is not only vengeance, but also a robust reaction that is described in “The Black Cat”. There is a passionate yearning in Montresor to hurt Fortunato even if he has not made any harm to him. Although Montresor asserts that he has been injured several times by Fortunato, he cannot defy calling him “respected, admired, beloved,” admitting his “good nature,” and also calling him “noble” (Little 212). These expressions confirmed that Fortunato is a good quality person and the expression “injuries” used in the first phase of the story is simply a hyperbole that Montresor’s psyche has fabricated. Furthermore, wickedness does not come unaccompanied, but it carries itself a sense of remorse. Even if Montresor reflects himself as the diplomat of his family for deafening down rivals, he suffers remorse while walling up Fortunato. Consequently, Poe’s clasp of unreasonableness and culpability of the human mind is
Edgar Allen Poe’s tale of murder and revenge, “The Cask of Amontillado”, offers a unique perspective into the mind of a deranged murderer. The effectiveness of the story is largely due to its first person point of view, which allows the reader a deeper involvement into the thoughts and motivations of the protagonist, Montresor. The first person narration results in an unbalanced viewpoint on the central conflict of the story, man versus man, because the reader knows very little about the thoughts of the antagonist, Fortunato. The setting of “The Cask of Amontillado”, in the dark catacombs of Montresor’s wine cellar, contributes to the story’s theme that some people will go to great lengths to fanatically defend their honor.
Poe starts off the story ironically with Montresor finding Fortunato near carnival season, where “[h]e had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells” (156). Most readers can deduce that Fortunato’s outfit was a jester’s costume, which is often worn at festivals and carnivals. Poe deliberately placed him in this costume as a hint of what was to come, for Montresor intended to make a fool out of Fortunato as he had made a fool out of him.
In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” Montresor sets out on a vengeful mission that will end Fortunato’s life in an untimely fate. Montresor appeals to Fortunato’s love for wine to tempt the unsuspecting fellow to his impending doom. While Montresor tricks the foolish Fortunato frightfully, it is ultimately Fortunato’s pride that leads to his demise in the crypt. Poe uses several literary devices to foreshadow this murderous exploit of Montresor. Through the use of irony, symbolism, and imagery, the story entices readers to delve into the relationships and differences between Montresor and Fortunato.
Alcohol is a commonly used symbol in Poe’s literature and it has a very unfortunate effect on his characters. When Montresor leads Fortunato to the river’s bed, he decides to further inebriate Fortunato. Before continuing he “broke and reached him a flagon of De Grâve. [Fortunato] emptied it at a breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light.” This exemplifies how alcohol can be misused because Montresor takes advantage ...
This immediate familiarity helps the reader to see inside the calculating mind of Montresor, whom we later learn is a killer. When talking about the past insults of Fortunato, he takes on a cold, determined tone: “At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled […] 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, 618).
Poe starts out with a man, by the name of Montresor, wanting revenge on another man, named Fortunato. Most of the story takes place deep in the Montresor family catacombs. As Montresor lures Fortunato into the catacombs, he chains Fortunato up to a small hole in a wall, bricks it over, and leaves Fortunato to die. Even through the traits of anger, hatred, and revenge, as the story progresses on, Montresor, the main character in “The Cask of Amontillado”, starts to show signs of feeling guilty for wanting to murder Fortunato.