Connor Brassfield
English B1B
Instructor Grimes
8/28/2024
Impressions Cask of Amontillado
“The Cask of Amontillado” is in itself a shard of the mind of Edgar Allen Poe; archaic in
structure even for his time, deep in the simplicity of human cruelty, and set darkly against a
backdrop of humor and plenty that becomes encapsulated in a (eventually relevant) earthy tomb
of silent horror. A tale of simple vengeance set between the humanity of the victim, and the alien
indignance of his killer. The story’s backdrop of carnival and celebration provides an opening
reality and warmth with the incredibly human (and well healed) Fortunato: aristocrat, vintner,
popular civic figure and friendly rake. Contrasting this is the less than moral protagonist of the
story: Montressor, supposed friend of Fortunato, and scion of a line familially focused on
vengeance, and he lives up to the family ideal with an almost atavistic purity of intent. (Poe 866)
His existence in the story is the vessel of grim ideals that contrast the flowing, and somewhat
hedonistic humanity that is Fortunato. The contrast between Fortunato’s warm, and somewhat
jovial nature through the dour story, and the mechanical, and dismissive inhumanity of
Montressor. In the name of vengeance for countless wounds undescribed and at best, only
alluded to by a prior wealth now vanished, Montressor, grim and friendly, shall kill a man
seeking to quench his thirst, in a dark, cold place of dry stone.
To the backdrop of the Italian Baroque Era, Poe sets up a story of extreme vengeance and
dichotomy between human fluidity in Fortunato, and a borderline animalistic vengeance impulse
embodiment that is Montresor.
The basic plot sets the bulk of the story between the inner cognition of Montressor, and the
increasing intoxication of Fortunato, the latter assuming a present and warm friendship between
the two. (Poe 866) The motivation of the rather calm and collected Montressor exists not through
any actual kindness, but opportunity: Fortunato at some point inflicted “A thousand wounds..” to
Fortunato, catalyzing the Montressor motto: Nemo me impune lacessit. The translation reveals
the end of the story, and puts to words Montressor’s motivation plainly: No one harms me
unpunished. (Poe 868) While the exact nature of the wounds inflicted remain undescribed, the
motivation for vengeance produces the details of character in Montressor that move the plot. His
motivation is overt, and his focus on achieving it undertones his dialogue for the majority of the
story as a consistent contrast to his apparent calm, focused, and benevolent care for Fortunato.
This apparent kindness grants him the simple perseverance to keep the motley clad “friend”
drunk, and moving, each concern for his health contradictory by the setting of their journey. Said
setting being the familial crypt of the Montressor, spanned and filled with niter, and supposedly,
containing a cask of Amontillado. Said cask serving as bait, and reward for Fortunato. Such is
the appreciation for this vintage that innate risk and danger is ignored even at the crux of death
with the simple exasperated concern for the Amontillado (Poe 870). The Amontillado is a rare
enough treasure that turns the warmth and optimism of Fortunato to more selfish aims,
capitalized on by Montressor.
The journey through the ancestral ossuaries and vintner-vaults of the Montressor plays
against the motley nature and kindness masked by the nearly sociopathic Montressor, to the
Dionysian Fortunato. Their engagement throughout the wandering, ever more somber by the
leading Montressor, and the ever more flowing and bombastic Fortunato show the humanity and
inhumanity of them as a pair. While Fortunato is driven by self pleasure, to drink and make
merry, at no real point does any hint of scorn come from him to his accompanying friend, while
Montressor speaks empty praises and simple cold retorts mixed with a mote of rare rage at being
shown faulty in his reasoning by casual query. The more human the drunk man becomes, the less
rational, and more primitive and direct the avenging man devolution leads. Their mutual tones
show in Fortunato a soft failing of restraint- his trust in his fellow man endures even in the
absurdness of his grim surroundings, while Montressor’s calm and almost dissociative clarity is
enhanced by their environ and the absurdity rolling by. While Fortunato makes small
commentary at best, the spirit of detail in Montressor’s internal dialogue is cold, clinical until he
nearly reaches his true goal: the entombment of a living Fortunato in the family crypt. The
ultimate fate of the kindly, if somewhat decadent man while the Montressor gloats in a grim
hindsight at the end of the story that the stones have laid undisturbed for fifty years. (Poe 870)
Dark humor, borderline amorality at best winning out over optimism, and a vaguely
insincerity in the lens of Montressor’s sanity- a fine tale, grim and rotted as the niter that weaves
through legacy to the rotted, improvised tomb-heaert of Fortunato’ final restless resting place,
one of Poe’s iconic pieces.
