Malicious Vengeance: The Ghastly Acts of Murder

In this essay, the author

• Analyzes how poe's short story, "the cast of amontillado," and louise erdrich’s essay, “fleur,” have prominent themes about revenge.
• Narrates how montresor lies to fortunato about having a rare wine that he would love to share with him, and explains that fortuneto, an avid wine connoisseur, is pleased to follow him due to his drunkenness.
• Analyzes how fortunato is so drunk and trusting of montresor that he blindly follows him into the back of a catacomb.

• Analyzes how poe's short story, "the cast of amontillado," and louise erdrich’s essay, “fleur,” have prominent themes about revenge.
• Narrates how montresor lies to fortunato about having a rare wine that he would love to share with him, and explains that fortuneto, an avid wine connoisseur, is pleased to follow him due to his drunkenness.
• Analyzes how fortunato is so drunk and trusting of montresor that he blindly follows him into the back of a catacomb.
• Analyzes how poe describes the act of revenge almost as a dark insanity that plagues the main character. montresor's madness is shown when he goes from friend to foe.
• Analyzes how poe views the act of vengeance as a solemn, sinister, and deranged work of hatred.
• Analyzes how poe's revenge is all about making the victim suffer ten-fold. his main character does everything in his power to swindle fortunato out of his life.
• Analyzes how erdrich's essay is told by a second-person narrator, about the life of native american named fleur.
• Describes pauline as the quite person that no one ever recognized until fleur came along. after witnessing such a shocking act done by her co-workers, towards her friend, she acts upon an opportunity.
• Analyzes how pauline secretly follows fleur home after she won a huge pot in poker, where she angered many of her co-workers by winning.
• Describes how pauline noticed that her fellow co-workers took shelter in the large meat freezer towards the back of the business. after confining the perpetrators, she walked away and acted like nothing happened.
• Analyzes how erdrich focuses on the events that led up to pauline's decision of commenting her act of revenge.
• Analyzes erdrich's essay in which pauline takes vengeance against the group of victims that attacked her friend; the co-workers were avenged by someone that witnessed their horrible act of violence, not by the person that was initially wronged.
• Analyzes how erdrich and montresor's victims were confined within a small and enclosed space. both were under the influence of alcohol when their attacker took advantage of them.
• Opines that pauline's co-workers had no idea they were murdered. they didn't think that she locked them in there intentionally, or had anything to do with it.
• Analyzes how poe's victim was deceived into his final resting place; montresor ticked poor fortunato into trusting him.
• Compares poe and erdrich's style of showing the reader acts of revenge, stating they found both stories to be very good at getting their point across, even though they were very different.
• Analyzes how poe's story ended with montresor mocking fortunado, who makes one last ploy for his life.
• Analyzes how erdrich ends her story in a happier fashion. pauline tells the reader that she went to help out in fleur’s cabin when she bore the child.
• Analyzes how poe's story is told by the avenger many years after what he had done to fortunado. erdrich’s essay illustrates that pauline visited fleur many different times after her act of revenge.
• Analyzes how poe presented his story of revenge in a more gruesome fashion than erdrich. montresor can see and hear his victim’s anguish while sentencing him to an untimely death.
• Opines that they do not find harmful malicious vengeance acceptable by any means. they believe that revenge comes from hatred, and living with an excess of hatred throws off one’s balance in life.
• Opines that even though they disagree with acts of revenge, they still battle with those undesirable thoughts. they would not do anything outside of their moral and ethical point-of-view to that particular person.
• Compares poe and erdrich's story styles. both stories accomplished the same goal of showing the act of murderous revenge.