REVENGE, A THOUGHT OUT PLAN
Revenge, A Thought Out Plan
Markus Mack
Bethel University
Revenge ,a Thought Out Plan
Alcohol and revenge have always been two ingredients for someone seeking revenge. A checkered past along with a dark, loud, fun-filled night sets the scene for a perfect revenge to take place. Montresor who bumps into an old bully he has been seeking, Fortunato, and seems to make the most of this night, by luring him to his death. This is when Fortunato realizes his love for wine and his past has predicted his future. The night, revenge, and a lonely graveyard (catacomb) all make for a perfect crime setting. Mistreating people in the past may predict your future.
Plot
“The Cask of Amontillado”, written by Edgar Allen Poe in 1846, is the best short-story ever. Fortunato,” an Italian with a pride of
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His vow for revenge and deceitfulness to carry out his plan for murder makes the story flow along with the dark cold catacomb setting. Montresor gives countless clues like the family arms above Fortunato rheumy eyes (Stepp,1976). Montresor composed a system to get revenge at Fortunato, that lead to the making of a great story. Montresor is an introvert, that hides his feelings from the outside world. “The typical introvert is shy, contemplative, and reserved and tends to have difficulty adjusting to social situations. Excessive daydreaming and introspection, careful balancing of considerations before reaching decisions, and withdrawal under stress are also typical of the introverted personality”(Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2017). It was Montresor’s feelings that made his character dark, revengeful, and in pain and misery, while longing for revenge to Fortunato. Montresor is a person who doesn’t forgets about past dealings and must seek revenge when the opportunity is right. But it alls falls in line with his family’s beliefs also, according to his family
Montresor is a man who feels pride in himself and in his family, so when Fortunato—an acquaintance of Montresor— “venture[s] upon insult,” Montresor “vow[s] revenge” against him (1). Montresor hastily decides that he must kill Fortunato, even though his use of the word “venture” implies that Fortunato had not yet insulted him, but nearly did. Montresor’s impulsive need for revenge causes him to formulate a plan to murder his acquaintance. He keeps Fortunato intoxicated by “presenting him…[with] wine,” he “fetter[s] him to the granite,” and he “plaster[s] up… [a wall of] new masonry” to trap Fortunato in the catacombs (39, 71, 89). All of these acts are signs that the need for revenge has made Fortunato insane. A person who has any sense of morals would not commit crimes such as Montresor’s. His impetuous decision to exact revenge caused him to lose his
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” is a short psychological thriller. The murder of Fortunato haunts Montresor so greatly that he feels the compulsion to tell the story some fifty years after the fact. He appears to be in the late stages of life desperately attempting to remove the stain of murder from his mind. That it is still so fresh and rich in specifics is proof that it has plagued him, “Perhaps the most chilling aspect of reading Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ for the first time is not the gruesome tale that Montresor relates, but the sudden, unpredictable, understated revelation that the murder, recounted in its every lurid detail, occurred not yesterday or last week, but a full fifty years prior to the telling” (DiSanza).
In “The Cask of Amontillado”, Montresor made up in his mind that he would carry out his act of revenge on Fortunato. Whatever offense Fortunato committed against Montresor drove him to the brink. The hatred inside was somewhat poetic. Montresor schemed to every detail how to carry out his revenge. The setting of the story is a dark, gloomy night at a celebration during carnival season. Montresor would be detailed in describing the monetary status of his enemy, his wardrobe or costume he wore to the celebration. He would set the mood as cheerful. Despite the ill feelings he has towards the now drunken Fortunato, Montresor pretends to care for his company to lure him towards his cunning plan. He strokes Fortunato’s ego and his love for wine to draw him towards the cellar. The dark, damp halls, the claustrophobia, and the human skeletons lying about the earth were all a foreshadowing of Motresor’s plan for the drunken Fortunato. It enhanced suspense to the story, building up to the climax which would be Fortunato entering into his grave. As they further enter the hal...
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.
In the ten years following 1836, Edgar Allan Poe established himself as a short story writer, writing the well known stories “The Tell-Tale Heart” in 1843 and “The Cask of Amontillado” in 1846. As dark as his nature was, the two stories were equally dark, one about a man killing an elderly man with a creepy eye, and the other about a rich dude killing someone who insulted him. As both of the tales possess main elements of murder and death, both of them also have elements that link the stories even more such as their protagonists, character motivations, and resolutions.
Symbolism is something that represents more than what it really is. It is often by authors in their writing to give it more emphasis. For example:" In life there will always be peaks and valleys" meaning in life there will be ups and downs but we should enjoy the peaks and fight through the valleys. Objects can also be a form of symbolism such as The Bible, it represents more than just a book. It represents Life, Church, Religion, and the life of Jesus Christ and what he stood for. Irony is like a twist or words or the opposite of what is intended. For example: Laughing at someone that just slipped and fell, then later you find yourself slipping and falling is a form of irony. Irony is found in real life situations as well as writings. Symbolism is a technique that gives authors a better story and shows objects as more than what they are. They use techniques like this to catch the reader’s attention.
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
In conclusion, Montresor is a very unique and demented character. This story strongly represents three characteristics that Montresor possesses. Montresor’s cleverness is the reason he can irony and detail to the situation. His determination is the driving force for all of his actions in the story. Finally, Montresor’s cruelty is what makes him a one-of-a-kind character with a unique course of action. All of these traits are what answer the question of who is
In his article “On Memory Forgetting, and Complicity in “the Cask of Amontillado”” Raymond DiSanza suggests that an act of wrongdoing is always at the heart of good horror stories. (194) DiSanza’s article on “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe describes Poe’s writing in a way I didn’t think of myself. DiSanza finds Poe’s language in this story to “taste like amontillado: smooth, slightly sweet, and appropriately chilled”. (DiSanza 195) Throughout his article he mostly talks about what possibly could have been Montresor’s motive to kill Fortunato? And why did Montresor wait fifty years to tell the story?
Ending in death most foul, “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” feature revenge and a painstaking cruelty. Pushed to the point of insanity and retribution sought over trivialities, the narrators tell each story by their own personal account. The delivery of their confessions gives a chilling depth to the crimes they have committed and to the men themselves. Both men are motivated by their egos and their obsessions with their offenders. Prompted by their own delusions, each man seeks a violent vengeance against his opposition in the form of precise, premeditated homicide.
The Case of Amontallido In a psychological perspective, the author’s life is linked with the behavior and motivations of characters in the story. The author’s name is Edgar Allan’s Poe who portrayed his self in his writing. The miserable life of Poe can be measured through “The Cask of Amontillado” in which character named “Montressor” showed indifferent feeling towards his victim. After burying Fortunado alive, Montressor felt bad after burying his victim alive but then he attributes the feeling of guilt to the damp catacombs.
renovating a palazzo his men found the bones of a human. When I got to
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” is a horror story about revenge and murder that occurred half a century ago. Through the haunting confession of the narrator, Montresor, the reader is able to feel what Fortunato had endured half a century ago. In this tale of revenge and murder the dark, damp, and bone-filled catacombs provide a contrast to life during the “madness of the carnival” (553).
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” is a frightening and entertaining short story about the severe consequences that result from persistent mockery and an unforgiving heart. Poe’s excellent use of Gothicism within the story sets the perfect tone for a dark and sinister plot of murder to unfold. “The Cask of Amontillado” simply overflows with various themes and other literary elements that result from Poe’s Gothic style of writing. Of these various themes, one that tends to dominant the story as a whole is the theme of revenge, which Poe supports with his sophisticated use of direct and indirect factors, irony, and symbolism.
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).