Evaluation Of The Cask Of Amontillado

In the story “The Cask of Amontillado”, by Edgar Allen Poe, one of the characters actually gets away with murder.

I chose this story for the simple fact that I enjoy Poe’s work greatly, and have since I was a child. I had a book of Poe stories and poems that was illustrated by Gahan Wilson. If you have ever seen any of Wilson’s macabre and gruesome comics or illustrations, then you will know why he is perfectly suited to engage with Poe’s often sick and twisted stories. I believe that this helped me, as a child, appreciate Poe’s work even more. I have been a fan ever since.

The theme of this story, as with the majority of Poe’s work, is that of the macabre, grotesque, and more specifically, murder.

There are three main characters, but only two of them are realized in this story. The first is Montresor, whose eyes we see the story through. I take him as being a sort of noble or some type of semi-powerful man in early 19th century France. He is a smart man, perhaps well educated due to his family’s money and power. While money and power are still present, I get the feeling that neither are as prevalent as they once were, simply because Montresor s

All in all, I think this is a great story, told by a true master of the macabre and gruesome, Edgar Allen Poe.

Montresor has used Fortunato’s love, and much bragged about knowledge of wine to draw him into the cellars and have him taste some Amontillado, a type of expensive spirit. Montresor’s ulterior motive is of course, murder. He plans on taking the intoxicated Fortunato into the catacombs and killing him. We do not know how Montresor intends to kill Fortunato until the last part of the story, when he chains Fortunato to a wall at the back of a short dead-end hallway of sorts, and proceeds to erect a wall of brick over the entrance to the portal. We know that Montresor is an experienced mason, as earlier in the telling he and Fortunato have a quick conversation about being members of a secret society know as Masons, who are bricklayers, and Montresor reveals a trowel, which is a bricklaying tool. To increase the cruelty of the situation, Poe even has Montresor stop halfway through his task and simply listen to Fortunato rattle the chains and try to break free. When the noise stops he continues with his work until one brick is left. We then hear Fortunato speak his last words that another human will ever hear. Suddenly Fortunato is not a tough, cocky, braggart as he always was, but a groveling, confused fool unable to realize he is a dead

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