Revenge is a topic most people are familiar with or can relate too. It’s the theme in many movies and TV shows people watch today. Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Cask of Amontillado”, is a captivating story about a man getting revenge on another man for the multitude of insults and injuries he faced. The story takes place sometime during the 1800s in Italy during the carnival season which is great time to carry out a plot for revenge without the other person even realizing what is about to happen. Poe constructs a story where the main character transforms from a protagonist to an antagonist in his pursuit for revenge on another character. In the beginning of the story, the main character, Montresor, can be viewed as the protagonist. …show more content…
Montresor has utterly transformed from a protagonist to an antagonist. When they reach the end of the vaults Montresor says, “I had fettered him to the granite. In its surface were two iron staples, distant from each other about two feet, horizontally. From one of these depended a short chain, from the other a padlock. Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it” (Poe 182). Montresor successfully tricked Fortunato into following him deep underground in his vaults where he chained him to the granite and started building a wall in front of him. He had a well thought out evil plan for his revenge on Fortunato which was to ultimately bury him alive. He is no longer viewed as a protagonist because of his elaborate plan for revenge which ended in Fortunato’s death. Montresor says as he is finishing up building the wall, “My heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so. I hastened to make an end of my labour” (Poe 184). Montresor does not even feel one ounce of guilt for what he just did to Fortunato. He can be viewed as an extremely heartless, awful man which makes him an antagonist. Fortunato switches to the protagonist at the end of the story, considering, whatever he did to Montresor could not have been that awful to make it necessary for him to be killed. Montresor is a very twisted character, since he had a pre-meditated plan for revenge on Fortunato and did not feel guilty for killing him which all mark his transformation into an
Evil exists naturally in the world, and there are many acts that are considered evil. As a result, evil is often a theme in literature. “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” by William Shakespeare, and “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe each rely heavily on evil to portray a message. Out of all of the evil acts that exist, exacting revenge is the evilest act that a person can make, for a person’s rash decision to exact revenge will ruin their sense of morality. The characters of Hamlet and Laertes in “Hamlet” each commit terrible acts of revenge, as does Montresor in “The Cask of Amontillado.”
Montresor seeks revenge on Fortunato by stating, “A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back” (Poe 379). Montresor is now getting revenge on Fortunato by chaining him up deep in the catacombs behind this big wall that he has just created. He is doing this to get payback for the things that Fortunato did to him at an earlier date and going by a plan he made to do everything. Montresor gets revenge and satisfies himself. He undergoes the action of doing so when he explains, “I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up, against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For a half of a century no mortal has disturbed them” (Poe 379). Montresor is building a huge wall deep in the catacombs with Fortunato behind that so no one can hear him scream and so he can die there and if that is not bad enough he is even chaining him up and drugging him in the process and then after that he is putting the bones back where he found them so even if someone did go back there no one would see or hear anything. That is some smart and painful planned revenge. This is how Montresor got revenge on
Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most celebrated literary authors of all time, known for writing very suspenseful, dramatic short stories and a poet; is considered as being a part of the American Romantic Movement, and a lesser known opinion is he is regarded as the inventor of the detective-fiction genre. Most recognized for his mystery and macabre, a journey into the dark, ghastly stories of death, deception and revenge is what makes up his reputation. The short story under analysis is a part of his latter works; “The Cask of Amontillado”, a story of revenge takes readers into the mind of the murderer.
These imperfections cause him to murder his former friend Fortunato, because “when he ventured upon insult, [Montresor] vowed revenge” (212). Montresor goes to severe measures in order to maintain his pride, demonstrating that he is arrogant, cruel, and a generally imperfect person. However, while Montresor appears cold and cruel on the outside, after he killed Fortunato “[his] heart grew sick” (216). Although Montresor perceives his emotional response as a physical reaction to the dampness of the catacombs, the reader sees it for what it truly is: a sign of remorse.The reader can discern that Montresor’s pride and cruelty are battling against his conscience, and that his flaws catalyze his actions. Observing Montresor’s faults instead of speculating he is comprehensively inhumane conceives him to be a profound and deep
Revenge is the opportunity to retaliate or gain satisfaction for a real or perceived slight ("revenge"). In “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, Montresor, the narrator, is out for revenge. Montressor seeks revenge against Fortunato and thinks he has developed the perfect plan for “revenge with impunity” (Baym). Montresor never tells the reader why he feels Fortunato deserves punishment. He only says that Fortunato causes him “a thousand injuries”until “[venturing] upon insult” (Baym ?). As a result, Montresor plans to bury Fortunato alive.
1. What can the reader infer about Montresor’s social position and character from hints in the text? What evidence does the text provide that Montresor is an unreliable narrator? We learned from paragraph 23 to 24 that Montresor owns a Palazzo and also has lot of retainers based on that evidence, the reader can infer that Montresor is a very wealthy and successful man. About his character, the reader can imply that Montresor is a heartless, cold blooded, sneaky, manipulative, and untrustworthy man, as well as a man who hold on to grudges. Moreover, Montresor is an unreliable narrator, because he reveals in the first paragraph that he intends to have a revenge on Fortunato, but he did not indicate or clearly prove to the readers how Fortunato
"The Cask of Amontillado" is one of Edgar Allan Poe's greatest stories. In this story Poe introduces two central characters and unfolds a tale of horror and perversion. Montresor, the narrator, and Fortunato, one of Montresor's friends, are doomed to the fate of their actions and will pay the price for their pride and jealousy. One pays the price with his life and the other pays the price with living with regret for the rest of his life. Poe uses mystery, irony, and imagery to create a horrifying, deceptive, and perverse story.
The perfect revenge is an action so many scorned have attempted and what so many more have lusted after. Apt punishment for the offender, success without being discovered and fulfillment without regret are all elements for satisfactory vengeance. All were present in "The Cask of Amontillado." However, despite Montresor's actions seeming to be perfect, he does not fulfill the criteria for flawless revenge. Poe doesn't quite allow readers to feel convinced of his main character's peace of mind. Subtle indications are strewn throughout the story that suggest otherwise. Though Montresor intended to cleanse his honor of Fortunato's insults, it may very well be that he only succeeded in creating, for himself, a guilty conscience, forever depriving himself of the sweetness of revenge.
In “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, Montresor approaches revenge like a connoisseur based on how he artfully plays with his victim Fortunato and especially enjoys his revenge. The beginning of the story opens up with Montresor guaranteeing revenge on his "friend" Fortunato because he had wronged him as stated by Montresor, "The thousands of injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.” The first way Montresor exhibits connoisseurship in revenge is when he uses Luchesi’s name to get Fortunato to come with him to taste wine. Because Montresor got a cheap pipe of Amontillado, he had his doubts that it was really Amontillado, so he went to find Fortunato to ask him. When he found Fortunato he saw that he was entertaining a crowd so Montresor says to Fortunato, “As you are engaged, I am on my way to
The short story, “The Cask of Amontillado” written by Edgar Allan Poe is about a man named Montresor who is seeking revenge after allegedly being insulted by Fortunato. The revenge Montresor is seeking is death, and after planning for some time, he decided the best time to kill Fortunato would be during carnival time. While Fortunato was in a jester costume and intoxicated Montresor informs Fortunato that he was on his way to ask Lucchesi, a fool who knew nothing about wine, to check if the shipment of Amontillado was indeed Amontillado wine. Montresor told this to Fortunato this because he knew he would get jealous and volunteer to test the wine. Montresor then leads Fortunato to his catacombs and kills him. Poe uses the literary techniques of dramatic and situational irony to demonstrate that Montresor was a malicious person who found Fortunato's pain humorous.
In Edgar Allen Poe’s story, “Cask of Amontidallo”, Poe uses irony to show that revenge is not always as satisfying as humans want it to be. Poe uses elements, such as, the characters’ dress, the coat of arms to hint towards the ironic end. In the story Montresor, our protagonist, laments the many wrongs committed against him by Fortunato, the careless victim of Montresor. The action of the story occurs on fat Tuesday of Carnival in Italy. This is why both Montresor, and Fortunato are in bizarre costumes. This was also Montressors excuse to give the staff the day off as Jamil Mustafa said, “Montressor had given his servants ‘explicit orders to not stir from the house’ during Carnival.” This ensured no witnesses would be there to see Montressor.
Because Montresor narrates the story in the first person, the reader is able to perceive his thoughts and understand his motivations and justifications for his ruthless murder in a manner which a third person point of view would not allow. Montresor’s personal narration of the events of the story does not justify his crime in the audience’s eyes, but it does offer a unique opportunity for the audience to view a murder from the perspective of a madman killer. It is Poe’s usage of this unique angle that causes the story to be so captivating and gruesomely fascinating. As the story opens, Montresor explains why it is necessary that he “not only punish but punish with impunity” to avenge for Fortunado’s insult to him. This justification for his crime is a piece of information that the audience is able to learn only because they are permitted inside the mind of the protagonist. In the final scene, when Montresor is carrying out his murder pl...
The first indirect factor that could contribute to Montresor’s vengeful act, and thus the story’s theme of revenge, is the character of Montresor. Montresor tends to harbor feelings of resentment and has a hard time not taking things out of context (Womack). He also plans the murder of Fortunato in advance and devises it in such a way that he will not be caught. In killing Fortunato, Montreso...
Edgar Allan Poe is a famous writer in writing detective stories and horror stories. One of his horror stories, “The Cask of Amontillado” was talking about how a man took his revenge to his friend. However, to look deeply in this story, I found that this story was not just simply a horror tale about how a man gets his revenge in the safest way. Instead, it also demonstrates much irony in several areas: the title, the event, the season, the costume, the environment, the characters’ personalities, a man’s dignity and cockiness and at the end, the public order. he are
The major characteristics of the narrator and main character, Montresor, are anger, hatred, and revenge. In the story, he is angry with Fortunato because he believes that Fortunato has wronged and insulted him many times by saying, “thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could…he ventured upon insult…” (Poe). In addition, Montresor’s hatred for Fortunato goes so far that he believes he must kill Fortunato. He mentions this in the story as, “[y]ou, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat” (Poe). He seems to say that his soul is made of hatred and goes on to say he must give Fortunato the utmost punishment: death. Montresor even shows traits of revenge when he says, “…but when [Fortunato] ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.” and “...I would be avenged…” (Poe). He is saying that he will get revenge on Fortunato, whom he is angry with and hates for being insulted by.