Cask Of Amontillado

♦ LITERARY QUALITIES ♦

"The Cask of Amontillado" is told in the first person by Montresor, who reveals in the first sentence that he intends to take revenge on Fortunato. He tells the story to an unidentified "you, who so well know the nature of my soul," but this "you" does not appear to respond in any way as Montresor delivers a long monologue. The most striking thing about Montresor's voice, in fact, is its uninterrupted calm and confidence. He tells the story from beginning to end with no diversion, no explanation, and no emotion. If he is gleeful at gaining his revenge, or if he feels guilty about his crime, he does not speak of it directly, and his language does not reveal it. Even at the most terrifying moment in the story, when Fortunato realizes that Montresor intends to seal him up behind a wall, the narrator is calm and detached:

I had scarcely laid the first tier of the masonry when I discovered that the in-

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toxication of Fortunato had in a great measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning cry from the depth of the recess. It was not the cry of a drunken man. There was then a long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, and the third, and the fourth.

By presenting the story in the first person, Poe avoids hinting at any interpretation of the action. Montresor is in control, deciding what to tell and what to leave out. A third-person narrator, even a limited narrator who could not see into the minds and hearts of the characters, would have presented a more balanced story. An objective narrator telling a terrible story objectively might be frightening, but even more frightening is a man telling without emotion the story of his own terrible crime.

Poe is often considered a master of the Gothic tale, and "The Cask of Amontillado" contains many of the standard elements of Gothicism. Gothic stories are typically set in medieval castles and feature mystery, horror, violence, ghosts, clanking chains, long underground passages, and dark chambers. The term "Gothic" originally referred to the Goths, an ancient and medieval Germanic tribe, but over time the word came to apply to anything medieval. The first Gothic novel, Horace Walpole's Castle ofOtranto (1764), was set in a medieval castle, and later works that attempted to capture the same setting or atmosphere were labeled "Gothic."

Poe was fascinated with the materials and devices of the Gothic novel, although he preferred to work in the short story form. He was a great admirer of Walpole and of the American Gothic writer Charles Brockden Brown. "The Cask of Amontillado" takes many details from the Gothic tradition: the palazzo of the Montresors with its many rooms, the archway that leads to the "long and winding staircase" down to the catacombs, the damp and dark passageway hanging with moss and drip-

ping moisture, the piles of bones, the flaming torches that flicker and fade, and the "clanking" and "furious vibrations of the chain" that Montresor uses to bind Fortunato to the wall. The overall atmosphere of brooding and horror also come from this tradition.

Some elements of the Gothic, however, Poe intentionally avoided: there is no hint in "The Cask of Amontillado," or in most of his horror stories, of the supernatural. Poe was quite clear on this point, explaining that the plot of a short story "may be involved, but it must not transcend probability. The agencies introduced must belong to real life." Montresor's crime is terrible, but it is believable, and it is committed without magic or superhuman power. Poe uses Gothic conventions to create an atmosphere of terror, but then he subverts the convention by using only human agents for terrible deeds. For Poe, it is not supernatural beings that people should fear; the real horror lies in what human beings themselves are capable of.

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