The Cask of Amontillado, written by Edgar Ellan Poe was first published in 1846 in a women’s magazine called “Godey’s Lady’s Book. The author, both a writer and a literary critic and theoretician is considered to be the master, and sometimes father of horror. He is also known to be the father of the short story genre and he published an article in the same year as this short story, which is called The Philosophy of Composition that glorifies the Short Story genre. (Sova,45)

The Cask of Amontillado is a revenge story set in an unknown part of Italy, where the majority of events occur in a vault or a wine cellar. The unreliable protagonist, Montressor, who was injured a thousand times at the hands of the other character, who will be murdered at the end of the story, Fortunato. Montressor basically lures him into tasting some wines at his cellar wherein he schemes to murder him to take his revenge that throughout the story he tries to justify.

 

 

​The story is about a vengeance, of which the reason is not clearly given but somehow implied and embedded within the text. As for my opinion, I hold that Poe wrote this story to convey the notion that no revenge is fulfilling unless the victim acknowledges his/her punisher and regrets his/her wrongdoings. There are various occasions and quotes in the text that support this notion. First of all, this can be clearly seen in Montressor’s own words as follows.

“I must not only punish but punish with impunity. 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.” (Poe, 5)

In this quote, he basically makes two points, the avenge must be taken with impunity and the avenger should make himself felt in the heart of the avenged to fulfill the aims of a vengeance.

 

Another evidence for the point lies behind the choices and actions of Montressor to murder Fortunato as Baraban suggests. (6) He wants to take his revenge with impunity, and he also has an important, aristocratic name so it could be quite wise for him to do his victim in without showing himself. However, he chooses to murder Fortunato with his own hands, totally visible to his victim so that he would know who the punisher is. This way, Montressor could be fulfilled in his purpose to clear out the insult Fortunato has inflicted allegedly on Montressor’s name or aristocratic background. Also, towards the end of the story when Montressor takes a break from his walling to listen to Fortunato and then answers him with “Fortunato!” he wants to make sure that his avenged is well aware that it is Montressor who is murdering him. The story has a lot more to give but this theme is the most prominent for this dark and creepy story.

 

References

Baraban, Elena V. “The Motive for Murder in ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ by Edgar Allan Poe.” Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature, vol. 58, no. 2, 2004, pp. 47–62., https://doi.org/10.2307/1566552. 

Poe, Edgar Allan. The Cask of Amontillado. 2016. 

Rocks, James E. “Conflict and Motive in ‘The Cask of Amontillado.’” Poe Studies, vol. 5, no. 2, 1972, pp. 50–51., https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1754-6095.1972.tb00198.x. 

Sova, Dawn B. Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z, Checkmark Books, New York, 2001, p. 45.