Thereapy with Monster

    Edgar Allen Poe is well-known author, with works read all over the world. Perhaps one of his most famous works is “The Cask of Amontillado”. It contains two characters, Montresor and Fortunato, and when they butt heads, everything goes awry. Montresor, a man of many talents, had a weakness. He may have hidden it well, but it was seen at the end of the story, when he holes up Fortunato. It was his anger, and he let it carry him. He does not have any self-hatred for himself as he lets anger take control. His reputation is very good, he was accomplished, and Fortunato knew this. Montresor has relations with others in his own special way. He saw through people and knew how to manipulate them. He is a rather ravenous human with the intent to kill. In the end he his successful, and he has an instant, but not long-lasting regret.

Montresor appears to be portraying passive-aggressive behavior, which can characterized by not addressing a problem directly, but working around somebody to get some sort of fake revenge. At the very beginning of “The Cask of Amontillado”, Montresor is giving little to no detail in his description of the “insult” from Fortunato that would make him so angry: “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge” ( Poe p. 360). This line is interesting because Montresor compares Fortunato’s “thousand injuries” to him, lesser in comparison to the single insult.  In reality, especially with Fortunato being a jester, Montresor probably blew things out of proportion and let his anger overcome. It made him so mad that he vowed to get revenge.  In fact he had a very well thought out plan to kill Fortunato which he put into action seemingly instantaneously.  If he had handled it any differently he would seem like a completely different person, and the story would have turned out quite a bit different.

    Montresor has quite a bit of knowledge about fine wine, and he knows that Fortunato does as well. He uses this against Fortunato, by saying that he has a rare wine. He also says he  knows someone else who will be better at guessing whether or not his Amontillado is real or not. Completely oblivious to the fact that he is being manipulated, Fortunato is drawn further and further into the family catacomb/wine cellar by Montresor. Later in the short story, the two are in the underground cellar of the Montresors. There Montresor seems to