Cask of Amontilado

Edgar Allen Poe's, "The Cask Of Amontillado," is a between two enemies. It humorously portrays the foil of Fortunato, as he is led through the catacombs. Poe's humour is dark, sarcastic and very ironic, which quickly becomes a signpost of the tale. Poe sets himself apart from other authors in his works, based on how he depicts and encounters death. It accentuates the notion that at times, your worst enemy will appear as your best friend. Pride is the downfall of every man and the same can be said for witty and daring tale fortunato.

"The Cask of Amontillado" starts out with Montresor, the narrator, saying, "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge." Simply by reading the first sentence of the story, it is easy to see that Montresor is vengeful and plans to get "revenge" on Fortunato and there is a lot more to come in the story.

Montresor also has a coat of arms which is, "A huge human foot d'or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel," with a motto of, "Nemo me impune lacessit," which stands for no one attacks me with impunity. The coat of arms and the family motto both suggest retribution. The arms symbolize Montresor and Fortunato, Fortunato stepping on Montresor, the snake, and Montresor getting even with Fortunato, the foot. Not only is Montresor vengeful, he is also very intelligent in his actions. In order to bring Fortunato into the wine cellars, Montresor had to make sure that "there were no attendants at home." Montresor tells the reader, "They had absconded to make merry in honor of the time. I had told them that I should not return until the morning, and had given explicit orders not to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient; I well knew, to insure their immediate disappearance, one and all, as soon as my back was turned." Montresor knew that by telling his servants that he would be gone until the morning they would go to the carnival whether he had told them to stay home or not.

Montresor was also a mason and used his skill and intelligence to seal the fate of Fortunato. Montresor had hid building stone and mortar in the cellar under a pile of bones, and had carried a trowel with him. He did such a good job sealing the niche in the wall, where Fortunato stood chained, and replacing the bones that, "For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them." In the story, Montresor is two-faced and fakes his sincerity towards Fortunato. Montresor does this by flattering and acting concerned about the health of Fortunato when really his only concern is killing Fortunato. While in the wine cellar, Montresor says to Fortunato, "Come, we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible. Besides, there is Luchesi-." Montresor does an excellent job of being Fortunatos' friend and at the same time convinces him to continue drinking and telling him, "A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps." Montresor was not trying to defend either one of them, his only purpose was to place Fortunato into a higher state of drunkenness. Montresor causes Fortunato to become so drunk that while he was being chained to the wall by Montresor, "He was too much astounded to resist." "The Cask of Amontillado" is filled with many ironies and also life lessons; such as know who your real friends are. Fortunato thought his real friend was Montresor when, in reality, Montresor was anything but his friend. Not only did Montresor fake his sincerity towards Fortunato, he was also vengeful and very intelligent in his actions to kill Fortunato.

This is a tale about pride and revenge. Among the many ironies of the tale are three which prove quite striking. The first is obvious from the beginning lines:

"The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat."

These lines are being delivered by the Narrator, Montressor, to his confessor, an unnamed priest. The confessor is the "you" of the second line: "You, who so well know the nature of my soul...." The irony is that Montressor, on his death bed, recalls the old rivalry with Fortunato and is supposed to be confessing and repenting. Yet, what he does in the course of the "confession" is to reveal that he is not sorrowful at all; rather, he remains pleased at himself that he was able to dispose of his enemy so cleverly. His sense of pride overcomes his contrition. He certainly does not deserve absolution for his sin, which means that he, Montressor, will be the one who, in the end, suffers the confinement of burial alive ... in Hell

A second irony is evident in the names of the two main characters: Montressor and Fortunato. It is obviously a play on the word, Fortunato: "the fortunate one." Yet, when we read the story we wonder: How can this fellow who gets buried alive, walled up in Montressor's catacomb-like wine celler, be "the fortunate one." Of course, the irony is that Fortunato is well named after all. He is the one who receives absolution; he is the one who will attain release, Heaven. It is Montressor who will gain Hell, which Poe would remind the reader is a place of dark confinement similar to being walled up in a wine cellar. When Fortunato says "Enough ... the cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough." to which Montressor replies "True -- true." The irony is that Fortunato is speaking a truth he cannot realize, as he is unaware of the plans of the devious plotting Montressor. Yet, it is important to remember, too, that Fortunato does not die as intended. He is spared the long, horrible ordeal of suffering a slow death of starvation and deprivation when he dies suddenly, possibly of a heart-attack, an event which robs Montressor of his fuller enjoyment of his crime. In the end, the entire exercise of walling up Fortunato proves to be in vain, and the only one who suffers at length is Montressor -- another of the ironies.

Therefore, irony remains the strongest theme of the story, a theme that starts from the very title of the piece: "A Cask of Amontillado." There is no cask of Amontillado; there is no fulfilment of wine. Nor is there any meaning or fulfilment