Edgar Allen Poe’s Cask of Amontillado

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Revenge in Edgar Allen Poe’s Cask of Amontillado
From the beginning of the story, Edgar Allen Poe indicates that revenge will have a key role in The Cask of Amontillado. In the very first sentence, Edgar says, “Fortunato had hurt me a thousand times, and I suffered quietly. But then I learned that he laughed at my proud name, Montresor, the name of an old and honored family. I promised myself that I would make him pay for this- that I would have revenge.” (Poe, 68) In the two paragraphs that follow, the bigger part of the story details the ideas of revenge that Montresor has in mind. From here, the author goes to a discussion by the narrator and details how he is planning to revenge on Fortunato.
A few things are striking when considering the commitment that Montresor had to avenge. The first one is that the narrator believes and feel that his plans and actions to revenge are justified (Harris, 33). He believes so because he is of the idea that revenge is justifiable and necessary, particularly when one has been individually humiliated or in the occasion that a certain word or action threatens the otherwise reputable name of the person or that of his family. It is evident that according to the narrator, Fortunato had hurt him a thousand times of which we can assume it could have been verbally. As such, it can be deduced that Montresor could put up with Fortunato’s insults until when he seemingly insults him individually. At this time, Montresor begins to take the issue seriously, and he feels that he has to do something and avenge.

Here, he essentially feels that for any offense that someone commits to you, then one must pay back. In short, he is a vengeful man.
The other striking thing is that Montresor reveals to his audience that he intends to avenge on Fortunato due to a certain insult which he does not specify and also due to the thousand injuries that he has caused him. However, it can be deduced that it is the pride of both the two of them that prompts Montresor to murder Fortunato. Montresor details how Fortunato was a man of pride, and he says that he was proud due to his expertise in tasting wine. As such, Gale (6) confirms that he utilizes this chance and plays on Fortunato’s pride by offering him the opportunity to flaunt his expertise on wine brewing and laugh at his less-developed skills, a chance that Fortunato could not let go and had to make ample use of it. As such, it can be concluded that pride was also a significant reason for Montresor wanting so much to avenge on Fortunato.
Montresor believes that he can only be happy with the way that he gets his revenge only if he accomplished two things. He must make sure that he is not caught when he is carrying out his attack and must also do it in such a manner that Fortunato, whom in this case is the person that he is planning to avenge on fully recognizes that revenge was being paid back to him. However, despite the fact that the narrator succeeds in persuading Fortunato to go into the crypts and eventually murdering him, he does not fulfill his set conditions fully in the manner that he had intended to have his revenge. At first, he confirms that he does not want to be caught up in the revenge attack by anyone which is a condition that for sure he meets. He says “There was no one at home. I had told the servants that they must not leave the palace, as I would not return until the following morning and they must care for the place. This, I knew, was enough to make it certain that they would all leave as soon as my back was turned.” (Poe, 69). This condition was a very critical condition, and he had to meet it since if he did not tell the house’s attendants to remain in the house, then his plans to lure Fortunato would have been compromised. However, Montresor does not succeed with the other condition, the one that he had set for himself. This is because Fortunato did not fully recognise the fact that he was going to be punished by his old colleague Montresor. When they met, he was already very much drunk and as such Montresor took this advantage of his friend’s weakness and easily tricked him to his trap by alluring to wine which was the thing that Fortunato looked beyond everything else.
All the above illustrations evidence that Montressor is the kind of man who would take revenge regardless of the mistake that someone has committed to them. He has a thing for revenge inside him, and it is evident that his entire family shares the same perception. Moreover, for Montresor to come out and recap the story of his revenge on his old ‘friend’ Fortunato in such a detailed manner somewhat seems as if Montresor was the one who had something disturbing him deep within while Fortunato got to rest in peace without any disturbance for almost fifty years. Though Montresor finally accomplished his plan and got his revenge, it was not what he had hoped for initially since it did not entirely satisfy what he had intended to get out of the plot to revenge.
Works Cited
Gale, Cengage Learning. A Study Guide for Edgar Allan Poe’s” Cask of Amontillado”. Gale, Cengage Learning, 2016.
Harris, Kathryn Montgomery. “Ironic Revenge in Poe’s” The Cask of Amontillado”.” Studies in Short Fiction 6.3 (1969): 333.
Poe, Edgar Allan. The cask of Amontillado. The Creative Company, 2008.