SNIPPET - A Review of Edgar Allan Poe's “The Cask of Amontillado”
Taking into account the history or the origin of “The Cask of Amontillado” which should be considered as an extraordinary non-fiction. Edgar Allan Poe published “The Cask of Amontillado” in 1846 which was year after his visit to San Giovanni in Italy with his friend. A thorough reading through an Academic Journal of Duke University Press which reveals, “the origin of “The Cask of Amontillado” could simply put an assumption to the readers of Poe’s short story that “The Cask of Amontillado” was very much aspired from the revengeful story told to Edgar Allan Poe when he encountered the small chamber in the church of San Lorenzo” (Schick 1). Couple of years before he published “The Cask of Amontillado”, we could read his horrifyingly depressed poem “The Raven” and his other literary works.
“The Raven” as I have read is a work with a lot of dull and gloomy images of a bird which only knows on how to articulate “nevermore” (Poe 48), marked as the most famous bothersome literary work of Edgar Allan Poe. Again, this means the years along to his writing of “The Cask of Amontillado” was the years when Poe was writing mysterious and dark stories. “The Cask of Amontillado” has a very comprehendible plot for the two main characters, Montresor and Fortunato.
Montresor maintain with the same level of characteristics from the beginning of the story. Thus, I envisioned him as a calm psychopath, visionary, and observant.
Although many would disagree with the opinion of idiolising of his well-planned revenge, but it is hardly to deny his slick and intelligent ways to make sure his homicidal plan leaves no alibi and proof. The short story begins with vengeful sentence as Poe written, “Fortunato had hurt me a thousand times and I had suffered quietly.” (69; par. 1). The story flows accordingly from the main character point of view in planning a murder towards his enemy, Fortunato. The readers are allowed to enter and embark on the same journey of the murderer. The story line extending of how the murderer views his plan, his observation, his possession, and his lunatic sight of killing a person is not a crime. The story was very nicely-written and weirdly calming successfully slowly disclosing the taste of curiosity among readers on how to observe our enemy and how to anticipate a well-planned death. Henceforth, this paper could be different than any other reviews which I have gone through.
Most of the reviews stated of how Montresor did not think of the consequences after committing such crime. “There should be bunch of questions popped up in someone’s mind to ponder before committing a murder” (Wanamaker 2). As compared to what I have viewed towards this story, Montresor actually did think of all the consequences before he executed his plan. He made sure that Fortunato was alone when he started to approach him, he put a very certain reason of why his maids should leave the house, and he buried Fortunato in an unusually deep small chamber which could be very much impossible to anyone to search for him.
Furthermore, this could be sounded maniac of how much I personally eager to get more insight of how Fortunato slowly loss of breaths and wildly gasping for air. I found the story of how Fortunato unfortunately died is rather hanging. I have the expectation of Montresor could be more psychotic by leaning against the wall which he had built just to listen of how Fortunato slowly but painfully died. On the other hand, most reviews are very much infused with the suffocating of Fortunato “Like poor Fortunato, we too are walled up in a suffocating structure from which only death — or the end of the story — can release us.” (Mc Grath 3). Also, I adore of how Montresor became very observant towards Fortunato. He searched for his weakness as he knew that he could not fight him by physically. Thus, he brilliantly uses Fortunato’s weakness to kill him which I found this as delicate and smooth.
In a nutshell, I recommend this story to be read as the plot and psychotic mind of the main character are both nicely and calmly exposed. In fact, if the purpose of the story is to disclose the taste of revenge and death, I would say it is partially achieved its’ purpose. Indeed, the final sentence of the short story shows the sweet revenge tastes like. I expect for more thrill and suffocation of death which could be written in the fan fiction, nevertheless.
Works Cited
McGrath, Patrick. "Method To The Madness". The New York Times, 2013, p. 1,
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/books/review/method-to-the-madness.html. Accessed 1 Mar 2018.
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Raven. 1845, http://www.umbc.edu/reslife/docs/living/poe. Accessed
1 Mar 2018.
Schick, Joseph S. "The Origin Of "The Cask Of Amontillado"". American Literature, vol 6,
no. 1, 1934, p. 18. JSTOR, doi:10.2307/2919684.
Wanamaker, Christopher. "An Analysis Of Edgar Allen Poe's 'The Cask Of Amontillado'".
Owlcation, 2016, https://owlcation.com/humanities/An-Analysis-of-Edgar-Allen
Poes-The-Cask-of-Amontillado. Accessed 1 Mar 2018.
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