“The Cask of Amontillado” is a story of revenge told in the first-person point of view. Montresor, the killer, narrates in detail the crime he committed fifty years ago against Fortunato for “insulting” him. It was apparent that Fortunato invested a great amount of time in plotting his revenge, but it was unclear why after fifty years, he was finally telling the story that no one ever found out. This is the first hint to the complexities of the character of Montresor which, as the story progresses, contradicted then interestingly intertwined with that of Fortunato’s that in the end it seemed as if they are one and the same person.
Montresor introduces Fortunato as a person “respected and even feared” (Poe), an Italian who is knowledgeable in vintage wines despite being a “quack in painting and gemmary” (Poe). Here Montresor establishes that like Fortunato, he is also a connoisseur of vintage Italian wines who can splurge every now and then. However, despite the similarity, Montresor points out Fortunato’s weakness which he took advantage of in order to execute his plans of revenge. At once, the differences between the two men became apparent. Fortunato expressed “excessive warmth” when he met Montresor, while Montresor was cordial due to what seemed a perfect opportunity for him to carry out his plan. In his state of inebriatedness, Fortunato’s outfit for the carnival season rather contradicted his stature. He wore “a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells” (Poe). Montresor, on the other hand, appeared every bit a gentleman in his “black mask, a short cloak and a rapier sword” (Bily).
Despite their differences, several irreconcilable paradoxes were presented in the story. For one, Montresor and Fortunato bear similar meaning (Hoffman 223, as cited by Grantz). Montresor implies “treasure,” which is also synonymous with the idea of the name Fortunato which means “fortune” (Bily). There was also the medoc wine that Montresor offered to Fortunato, a wine that is believed to have medicinal abilities that helps “defend people from the damps” (Bily). In contrast, the other wine bottle contains De Grave, which when translated means “the grave” (Bily). As Montresor lures Fortunato into the catacombs, Montresori’s family’s coat of arms shows another contradiction that also alludes to his evil plan towards Fortunato. In it is man’s heel crushing a serpent with its fangs biting on the man’s heel. Along with the picture are the words “Nemo me impune lacessit,” which also happens to be Scotland’s national motto that when translated means “No one assails me with impunity” (Silverman 316, as cited in Gantz). The coat of arms explains Montrsori’s desire for revenge. However, it is interesting to note that his plan to kill Fortunato was only based on some unknown insult that was never even explained.
As Montresori chained Fortunato in the deep recesses of the niche, and proceeded on to pile the bricks that will enclose him to his death, Fortunato emitted a low moaning cry that is far from the cry of a drunken man. Montresor realizes that Fortunato has woken up from his drunkenness and is has started to realize the predicament that he was in. With Fortunato’s screams and yells, Montresor felt a sliver of hesitation which he quelled by re-echoing each of Fortunato’s screams and yells. Bily states that with “the sounds produced by two men, enemies and opposites, hundreds of feet underground,one grotesque sound” is produced. In that instant and sound, the two became one person (Bily).
Fifty years after Fortunato was buried, Montresor tells this story with a sense of confusion. The beginning lines of the story, “A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong” is a far cry from Montresori’s direct and distinct language in the story (Bily). It is apparent that there is a perplexity in identifying who the redresser, the redressee and the avenger is, and this is explained by Biley as Montresor’s failure to distinguish who the victim and the avenger. In Montresori’s mind, both are tightly connected that it is hard to separate them from each other, thereby making them one (Bily).
Montresori’s reasons for telling letting out this secret after keeping it for a long time is still unclear, but some critics supposed it has to do with guilt. Hoffman, as cited in Bily, explains that Poe has the tendency to “double his character and then arranges for one to murder the other by burying him alive” in order for him to “deal with his own demons, his own repressed guilt” (Hoffman). Grantz observes that perhaps the idea of guilt that burdened Montresor was the same guilt that Poe himself felt in his life. Although Poe’s crimes were not those punishable by law, but those which are committed against his spirit, and through these he created the characters of Fortunato who committed the “follies of the flesh” (Grantz), and Montresor who represented the “spiritual repugnance for those follies” (Grantz). Montresori and Fortunato are two different people but have been reconciled in the end as they came to represent a person having two different personalities, with one hating the other due to a “thousand injuries and insult” (Poe) hurled to the other, and thereby extracting revenge them. With the accompanying guilt, a confession is made by Montresor in order to free his soul from the burden, and with his last line in the story, “In pace requiescat” or “Rest in peace,” he hopes that his soul would achieve peace.
Works Cited
Bily, Cynthia. “The Cask of Amontillado.” Edgar Allan Poe Biography & Writings (2010).
bio-edgarallanpoe.blogspot.com. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
Grantz, David. “That Spectre in My Path: Poe’s Doppelganger as Revealed in “William
Wilson,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Man of the Crowd”.” poedecoder.com.
(2001). Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Cask of Amontillado. xroads.virginia.edu.1846. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
