Even though I hadn’t read Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” before today, I felt like I knew exactly what was coming because we watched the film in class last week. I believe the film portrayed the actual short story quite well. Unfortunately, watching the movie before reading the story left me without any feeling of surprise at the end of Poe’s tale. Regardless, I still found the story to be interesting due in part to our narrator’s lack of reasoning behind killing Fortunato. The first line of the story reads, “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.” What was this terrible insult that would possess our narrator to seek revenge?
The story takes place one night during the carnival season. Fortunato is highly intoxicated at this point and is approached by our narrator, Montresor, with an inquisition about Amontillado (a type of wine). Since Fortunato is considered a proficient in tasting wines he follows Montresor to his inevitable doom. Montresor takes Fortunato into the vaults below his house, coaxing him to his fate. Throughout the entire story Poe had our narrator address Fortunato in a rather unique way. He referred to him as his friend, and was overly concerned about Fortunato’s health and wellbeing. He even offered several times to turn around and forget the Amontillado. I understand Montresor had to trick Fortunato into believing he truly cared about him. However, there are several occasions when I thought Montresor really hoped Fortunato would ask to leave.
Poe uses several examples of foreshadowing during the short story. One instance is when Montresor is inquiring about Fortunato’s cough. Fortunato states, “the cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough.” That is absolutely correct, Fortunato will die when our narrator buries him alive. There is also an example when the men say a toast. Fortunato toasts to, “the buried that repose around us,” while Montresor in response states, “And I to your long life.” At this point readers are aware something unusual is going on. The text suggests Fortunato will not make it out of this excursion alive. Sure enough, when the opportunity arises, Montresor does chain Fortunato to a wall. He then proceeds to construct another wall, essentially burying him alive. The question that still remains in my mind is why? What did he do that brought about this horrendous act?
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