Review of The Cask of Amontillado

                            Review of The Cask of Amontillado

         The Cask of Amontillado is a daring story by the ever-famous Edgar Allen Poe that shows the pain of hate and desire for revenge.  Remember always though to not forget the Golden Rule and that prideful reaping will only bring about to you a large and painful fall.  Many people have wanted to gain revenge but for a man to say that he is to conduct his action of revenge with full intention of making justice in one’s own mind is an accusation of pure madness.  But what could one possibly do to receive such hate from another?  The question is a mystery but you cant tell me you aren’t interested about Poe’s story so please sit back and let me tell you about why it is sooo good.  Poe makes his point clear in the Cask of Amontillado by his amazing use of literary elements such as plot, setting, and foreshadowing.

         Poe uses one the very planning parts of a story to tell his tail in an amazing way through the literary element of plot.  Stories can have very strong, light, and any combination of types of plots.  The Cask of Amontillado has a strong plot.  The Story lines up in the plot perfectly.  There is an explanation of why the character is wanting to get revenge fills strongly to act upon the other character.  Montresor the narrator is seeking revenge after Fortunato who is the other large character in the story.  His introduction starts saying,

“The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.”  The intention of your main character is clearly stated although reason is not; you have no doubt from the vocabulary that he is greatly offended.  Then actions that follow bring about ability to carry out, but can he struggle past himself in morality, and can he struggle against his adversary to achieve his objectives?  Poe uses the knowledge he possesses to carry his idea to the max and then fall into the next part of the story giving succession and strong plot to follow.  He doesn’t introduce you with a setting but in the actions and the climax he uses foreshadowing and setting to assist the conducting of his plot properly.

With the use of his plot he also teaches you the theme of the story, that you ultimately reap what you sow.  For a story to really teach a life lesson in the theme of the story the author has to stay focused on his message and the idea while he is carrying out the actual actions of the story.  It takes the entire story working together for it to be a success, and to me a successful story cannot be written unless you have to pay attention to every aspect to fully understand it.  The characters are realistic and there is a proven sense of seriousness throughout the story and Poe’s extensive understanding of plot and use of it proves all of this.  If you are to see the revenge in a story you have to have a serious mood, that of hate, at the beginning and on into the conflict.  Then you see the madness created and the climax will show if the revenge is truly a success or a failure that all results of over flooded hatred.  “Nemo me impune lacessit”, or in English no one attacks me with impunity could be a statement of assurance or a statement of ignorant pride.  When you read The Cask of Amontillado remember to first look at the plot that is used Edgar Allen Poe.

You can’t very well carry out a nursery rhythm in a dark mansion or a horror story in the sunny beautiful place that one would enjoy frolicking because setting is another vital part of an author’s success in his/her story.  Poe is an author that fully understood this element and used it also wisely.  If you think of revenge you think of dark sinister thoughts.  A story of revenge has a setting of scary eeriness and one that would cause fear because revenge is not a warm cuddly area and in composing a short story Poe knew that where the story took place was a vital piece of the puzzle and you can see that from these quotes I would like to pull out of the story:

·          “. . ., bowed him through several suites of rooms to the archway that led into the vaults.  I passed down a long and winding staircase, requesting him to be cautious as he followed.  We came at length to the foot of the descent, and stood together upon the damp ground of the catacombs of the Montresors.”

·          “Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris . . . From the fourth side the bones had been thrown down, and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a mound of some size . . . It seemed to have been constructed for no especial use within itself, but formed merely the interval between two of the colossal supports of the roof of the catacombs, and was back by one of their circumscribing walls of solid granite.”

Setting pulls you in the to the story, make inferences, and gives you a sign of foreshadowing on the events to follow.  Symbolism is a big element that lies right within the barriers of setting and gives symbolism of things to come.  The settings presented in these two quotes of the story show you signs of death and evil by describing objects surrounding, colors, and even the setup of the setting itself.  You can’t tell your story and have it make any sense if you don’t have the proper setting.

Poe also uses foreshadowing along with his uses of plot and setting to bring across his message and to make this story one that you will read and enjoy.  A well-written horror story has to have suspense or it just doesn’t give you that jumpy or that scared feeling.  Poe brings to you in this story foreshadowing and that creepy suspenseful feeling.  This is hard for a writer to do but Poe does it anyway with such a way that just makes his story that much better.  Look again at the setting quotes that I brought out of the story and you can see the coming of death and misery but you aren’t able to see the result of the conflict because while he gives you sign of the defiant success of the main character Poe doesn’t let you know quite yet because he throws in shadows of doubt and questioning.

In Poe’s use of foreshadowing he also used the plot to aid the device by letting some of the major rising action be direct foreshadowing events to use the two device as one and enlighten ideas of mystery.  You read the story trying to break it apart because you want to know if Montressor will succeed in quest of receiving revenge, but you just can’t see for it to happen or to not happen.  You can see how just in these three elements I mentioned that Poe molded together and let each literary device hold up the other.  But why would an author feel so strongly to write a story of revenge and it was just an act of justice?

Edgar Allen Poe lived a very short and tragic life that was compiled by attributes of dislike, loneliness, and death of the few people that he allowed himself to get close to and love.  Poe had to experience a lot of self-conflict that defiantly pushed him to his all and all.  He had a list problems compelled that consisted of gambling, drugs, alcohol, and constant depression because he could not take revenge on the thing that caused him the most pain and that was fait itself.  Everyone he loved was taken by the incurable (at the time) disease of tuberculosis. 

I believe that this story was Poe’s way of saying he didn’t know how to deal with the inability to take revenge on his opposing force, which was fait.  He seemed to hurt himself to an unreal level by taking into his life things like gambling (which he probably might have at a time was what he compared to life), drinking (to probably forget his pain), and maybe drugs (because he would probably seek a realm that had to be better than the reality that he lived in).  He begins this story, “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.”  I don’t know the approximate time that Edgar Allen Poe wrote this story but it was probably a time that he may had thought of suicide or even before he was found dead with alcohol in his system on a street corner.  It seems that Poe could obviously not take revenge on fate and had no one to blame so he took out the bubbling hurt and made himself his own source of source of pain which would be his life itself and his own identity his outlet because he felt shut out from others because everyone he had loved left him in death.  Some authors seek an inspiration for their writings but I believe that Poe just expressed his life and experiences and that is why he is notorious for his horror stories, scary isn’t it.

I have given and supported my opinion to you as best to my ability and I know that when you read this story you will enjoy.  Remember when you read to get the message that something is trying to teach you and after you enjoy a piece break it down in your mind.  Poe used his ability to express himself in this story through the use of the literary element devices of setting, plot, and foreshadowing made it the story for me.  I give The Cask of Amontillado my ballot and would venture to say that it is an example of how a short story should be written.