The Cask of Amontillado Critical Response

"The Cask of

Amontillado" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe that was first published

in Godey's Lady's Book in November of 1846. It takes place in a city

without a name in the country of Italy, possibly within the 18th century.

The plot is concerned with the fatal revenge of our narrator Montesor upon

his friend who he feels had insulted him, though the particulars of said

insult are never revealed. Montesor plots to murder his friend Fortunato

over said insult when he becomes excessively drunk and dressed like a

jester at the town Carnival. In order to get Fortunato close enough to him

to be murdered, he lies and says that he has a large amount of Amontillado,

a very valuable and rare wine. He states that he needs his friend's opinion

on the matter, and they wander to the wine cellars and into the catacombs.

Due to the dampness of the catacombs, Montesor warns Fortunato that he will

catch a bad cough, yet Fortunato wishes to continue, stating he will not

"die of a cough." As they continue on, a drunken Fortunato is unsuspecting

yet unresisting as Montesor chains him to a wall. Montesor decides to leave

his friend and bury him alive in the catacombs. A quickly sobered Fortunato

realizes this and begins to scream for help, yet his screams are drowned by

the laughs of Montesor because no one can hear him. As Montesor places the

last imprisoning stone, he drops a burning torch within, leaving his friend

to die. Within the last few sentences of the story, Montesor states that it

had been fifty years since the murder of his friend and that he had never

been caught. Montesor ends Poe's story by stating, "In pace requiescat,"

meaning may he rest in peace. The major themes in this short story are very

apparent: revenge and betrayal. Although the story is indeed frightening,

Montesor's recollection of the murderous night makes it rather difficult to

understand his motives for killing his dear friend. However, it does add to

the level of terror within the story. So for my paper I am going to discuss

how Poe's work, demonstrated within "The Cask of Amontillado," displays

that every small detail helps to intensify the effect of terror. In this

story, unlike many other terrifying short stories, there is no detective.

My point being, the narrator himself was describing in detail as to how he

committed the murder. Usually with others, there is a detective the reader

follows as though helping to solve the mystery. Without this, it is up to

the reader to solve the mystery. Poe himself indeed knows this as he has

once stated that his work proceeds, "to its completion with the precision

and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem." Although it tells of the

"thousand injuries" imposed by Fortunato upon Montesor the motive for the

murder is left very vague. Many readers and critics alike are usually ones

to conclude that Montesor was simply insane, with no valid motive or reason

at all for killing his friend. Many critics share this view of insanity.

One critic, Edward Hutchins Davidson writes,

"We never know what has made him hate Fortunato nor are we awake that he

has ever laid out any plan to effect his revenge….There is nothing

intellectual here; everything is mad and improvisatory—and