Sane vs. Insane Revenge can be an act of sanity or insanity. Insanity is a state of mind where a person lacks emotion and the ability for a higher level of thought. Conversely, sanity is a state of being where a person is in complete control of their emotions and cognitive functions. In the short story “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, the main character, Montresor, murders Fortunato for insulting him. Montresor lures Fortunato into the catacombs under his mansion during Carnival in Italy with the promise of Amontillado. Montresor walls Fortunato into a niche, thereby killing him. Montresor is sane because he is able to think of a plan to kill Fortunato and feel regret after the deed is done. The ability to make plans and carry …show more content…
When Montresor has almost completed the wall that eventually suffocates Fortunato, Fortunato becomes unresponsive to Montresor’s banter. This upsets some part of Montresor, as shown in the text, “My heart grew sick- on account of the dampness of the catacombs” (Poe 217). This quote shows that Montresor feels regret for killing Fortunato, though he tries to deny to himself that he regrets it. In fact, his denial of his emotions proves that he has them. In the quote, there is a hyphen between where he says his heart is sick and where he says it is sick because of the catacombs. This hyphen shows that Montresor added the second part of the sentence as an afterthought, which means he is trying to deny his emotions. This is significant because when a person tries to explain away their feelings, it is because they do not know how to deal with them. Montresor does not want to feel regret because it means that perhaps he was wrong and killing Fortunato was not the right thing for him to do after all. On top of that, symbolically speaking, the heart is the emotional core of a person’s body. It is not a coincidence that it is Montresor’s heart and not some other part of his body, such as his lungs, that is harmed from this experience. This evidence proves that Montresor is sane because it shows that the death of Fortunato evokes a semblance of
In Edgar Allen Poe's “ The Cask Of Amontillado”, Montresor, the narrator is insane. “The Cask Of Amontillado” is a story of revenge. Montresor is mad at Fortunato because he said an insult about Montresor. He got so mad that he plotted an extremely good plan to kill Fortunato. At the end of the story Montresor did eventually go to the catacombs and kill him, but nobody has found out that he is dead and it has been 50 years ago. Montresor is insane because he is pleased by the sound of other people's misfortune and suffering and he wants revenge over an insult.
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 proves not to mess with someone's feeling. He explains, “I must not only punish, but punish with impunity” (Poe 372). Fortunato does not know that he is going to die, yet Montresor and the reader do know, making the situation dramatic irony. By punishing him with impunity he is going to get revenge that he has wanted now for years ever since he did wrong to Montresor and now that he finally gets the chance of course he will seek revenge on Fortunato. And it is dramatic irony because Fortunato is oblivious to the situation. Montresor proves that one should be careful on what they say. He speaks, “I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation” (Poe 372). Montresor is saying
The setting of a story lays the foundation for how a story is constructed. It gives a sense of direction to where the climax is headed. The setting also gives the visual feedback that the readers need to picture themselves into the story and comprehend it better. Determining the setting can be a major element towards drawing in the reader and how they relate to a story. A minor change in the plot can drastically alter to perception, interpretation, and direction of the message that is delivered. These descriptive elements can be found within these short stories: “the Cask of Amontillado”, “The Storm”, “The Things They Carried”, “Everyday Use”, and “The Story of an Hour”.
The Cask of Amontillado, written by Edgar Allan Poe, is a chilling story about two men named Fortunato and Montresor. The story begins with a narrator voicing his anger and resentment towards a man named Fortunato for “a thousand injuries” and insults. Our narrator sees Fortunato and lures him down into his vaults, or “catacombs,” on the premise of verifying that some wine is a certain type. Fortunato was already drunk, and had a cold. Eventually, the men reach a crypt, and the narrator chains Fortunato to the wall. Not stopping there, the narrator begins to trap him in the hole by filling it with bricks. Fortunato is quiet, until the hole is nearly filled, when he screams and then tells the narrator that it was a good joke. The narrator’s name is revealed to be Montresor. Montresor calmly takes the last brick and prepares to slide it into place, but stops and listens. All he hears are the jingling of bells. Then Montresor puts in the last brick, hence sealing Fotunato’s fate. There is chilling irony woven all throughout The Cask of Amontillado. It isn’t until the end of the story that we discover the tale took place fifty years before. Montresor’s vile deed’s motivation can be largely attributed to social class, fulfilling what he considered to be “just retribution” for the unnamed insult that was given him by Fortunato.
To some of the most fanatic and most creative Poe fans the question may arise: could I reproduce the great Edgar’s works? And if the answer is yes, then how? We might assume that Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most recognizable authors and poets not only of his age but of the whole modern literature, but still we would face numerous difficulties in trying to imitate his writing. Also, placing him into a certain style or literary movement would give us some really tough hours. Poe can be considered either a Romantic or Gothic writer but we could find a number of arguments and counterarguments for this matter. Poe, in fact, reinterpreted the whole Gothic horror style and created a unique, distinct brew of Gothic fiction, Romanticism and his own gloomy mind. On the basis of A Cask of Amontillado and The Tell-Tale Heart, we can deduct that despite the uniqueness of Poe’s works there are some recurring elements in Poe’s short-stories. Generally, if anyone wanted to write a Poesque short story, here are the ingredients: a fine case of murder, a big spoonful of madness and a pinch of revenge.
In The Cask of Amontillado, the theme of revenge is established at the start of the story, when the narrator states that he suffered irreversible insult by his associate, Fortunato, thus he vowed to avenge this action. This is evident in the following statement in the opening paragraph of the story, “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge” (Poe 7). Therefore, it is apparent to the reader from the onset of the story that revenge is a major driving force for Montresor for him to dreadfully murder his acquaintance,...
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
Humans have always struggled against confinement and toward freedom. However, they choose not to recognize that history has proved time and again that too much freedom incites anarchy and too much confinement invites tyranny. It’s the nature of all animals to desire freedom and resist confinement. Many times the animal struggles so blindly it does not recognize it is destroying itself or condemning itself to further confinement. In “The Cask of Amontillado” Fortunato and Montresor are symbols of how human nature manifests differently in different people in varying combinations of psychological and physical freedom and confinement.
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.
?The Cask of Amontillado? by Edgar Allan Poe is a story about two men at a carnival, the narrator Montresor, who is being eaten by jealousy, and Fortunato, a rich drunk man that has a weakness for wine. It is through deception that Montresor achieves his revenge against Fortunato. He did not believe that killing Fortunato is wrong because of the insults and injures Fortunato brought against him. ?The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne.? (Poe, 75) says Montresor. Montresor brought Fortunato down into the catacomb. This was his chance for revenge.
When Montresor planned on killing Fortunato, he intended to do the deed in his family’s catacombs. Catacombs were typically used to bury people, but in this instance, “the catacombs were the perfect place for a murder” (eNotes). Montresor’s family was buried in the catacombs, which, even though they were the best place for the murder to happen, is a little ironic because despite the possibility of Montresor thinking Fortunato as family, that feeling went away when Fortunato insulted him. Additionally, there is the subject of the death itself. In the middle of the story, Montresor noticed that Fortunato had a cough, to which he said “the cough is a mere nothing: it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough” (238). This is ironic because when Fortunato stated that he would not die of a cough, he did not know that it would not be the cough that did him in, but his old friend Montresor. Moreover, there is also the pride that entailed the murder. Both Montresor’s pride and Fortunato’s pride played a part in the death. For example, “[Fortunato] prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine” (236), and he did not particularly think before he spoke, which was just worsened when he was drunk. This was sardonic because Fortunato’s pride was the thing that ultimately lead to his demise. In like manner, there is also the subject of Montresor’s pride. It is stated in the first paragraph of the story that “the thousand injuries of Fortunato [he] had borne as [he] best could, but when he ventured upon insult, [he] vowed revenge” (236). Needless to say, if Montresor took Fortunato’s insult with a grain of salt, he would not have been driven to kill him, which would erase the whole plot of the book. Montresor vowing revenge on Fortunato is ironic because there might have been times in the past when Montresor insulted Fortunato, but he was probably too incompetent to notice the
Paul Babiak addresses, “If psychopaths commit a homicide, their killing likely will be planned and purposeful, not the result of a loss of emotional control; their motive more commonly will involve sadistic gratification” (Psychopathy 7). The revenge Montresor is planning to implant on Fortunato was not by chance. He sought out his plot to manipulate, pathologically lie, and send Fortunato onto his death. Afterward, Montresor felt no sense of guilt or remorse. Montresor didn’t show a lack of empathy towards the situation. He admits, “There was then a long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, […]; and then I heard the furious vibrations of the chain. The noise lasted for several minutes, […], that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction” (Poe 9). His satisfaction of the furious vibrations of the noise that he stays concentrating on is merely an act of feeling no sense of remorse, guilt, or empathy towards the suffering he is causing Fortunato (Poe
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.