CASK

Guys,

So Excited about this project! Me and Nick met up on Wednesday and had an informal discussion about the story The Cask of Amontillado and it was great fun. I pulled a few themes and interests out of the story that hopefully will be fun to explore:

• Drunkeness - Fortunado and Montresor venture down into the catacombs where there is an overwhelming smell of the dead. Montresor gives Fortunado wine to dull his senses so that he may continue to search for the Amontillado. Its almost as if Poe is saying that even when death is all around us, we distract ourselves from it with pleasures even though our own demise is permeating. Also Amontillado is a type of wine, Fortunado is a connoisseur of wine, and the illusion of the story is that Fortunado is going to help Montresor find out if the wine he bought was really Amontillado.
• Repetition and Subtext - When Fortunado and Montresor talk, Montresor often repeats what Fortunado is saying, but implies a different meaning. There are also situations when the subtext creates a horrifying foreshadowing:

"Enough," he said; "the cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough."

"True -- true," I replied.

• The motive for the crime is somewhat of a mystery. It is speculated that Montresor is insane, but other scholars say otherwise. Poe being the inventor of the detective story has made the murder clear, but the motive a mystery for the reader to figure out.
• Fortunado might not actually be a connoisseur of wine. He says "Lucesi could not tell an Amontillado from a Sherry". In fact, however, Amontillado is a type of Sherry.

Nick and I will be meeting up again sometime in the next three days. I would personally like to get on our feet and experiment, but I would not be dissapointed if we discussed and held a close reading.

UPDATE:

The Cask

·         Poe wrote this while his wife was desperately ill. He was also dirt poor.

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             Why did Montresor kill Fortunato?

o   “theory of perversity”

§  Montresor Kills Fortunato because he has been good to him

o   Montresor plans and carries out a precisely calculated revenge which he finally reveals, after "the half of a century," only to one who "well know[s] the nature of [his] soul."

o   Duello – Honor

§  Why insult hurt more than injury

§  Montresor flouts the social code of the duello and follows instead a primitive code of revenge which gives perverse expression to his individualism and egoism.

·         Nemo me impune lacessit  -No one attacks me with impunity

·         Pervasive Irony

o   The basic situation of masquerade, deceit, and treachery makes for sustained irony, and in addition the tale contains many specific touches of irony. The name of Fortunato is realized in both of its ambiguous significances, as Fortunato, "the lucky one," gives way to Fortunato, "the fated one." Fortunato, the man of pride and insolence, is dressed as a fool. The smile of Montresor is seemingly cordial, but truly malicious. Montresor speaks of Fortunato as his friend, calls him "noble," and speaks of his glowing health and "good nature." Murder occurs at the gayest time of the year. The wine vaults of Montresor become the burial vault of Fortunato. Fortunato is buried with the family he has insulted. It is Fortunato, not Montresor, who is made to insist upon descending to the vaults and going down to the place of his death. Montresor repeatedly expresses concern for Fortunato's health, and warns of the dampness and the nitre. Montresor emphatically agrees when Fortunato naively remarks, "I shall not die of a cough." Fortunato innocently drinks to "the buried that repose around us," whom he is about to join, while Montresor mockingly drinks to Fortunato's "long life." Montresor, the supposed connoisseur of Italian wines, is called upon to judge two Spanish wines and fails to distinguish between two common French wines. Fortunato greets with indulgent delight the ominous coat of arms and motto that foreshadow his own death. Fortunato, the excommunicate Mason, asks to be released "for the love of God,"

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        THE WHOLE STORY IS A GIANT PUN

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       In a time of foolery, murder happens

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        Fortunato insults Montresor and Luchresi, risks his health and life, drinks to excess, flaunts his membership in the forbidden order of Masons, and boasts of his doubtful skill in judging wines. He is "noble" only in the technical sense that he has a palazzo and his wife is "Lady Fortunato."

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         A tale of effect

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Poe cautioned the writer of a tale that "if his very initial sentence tend not to the outbringing of [his] effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design." (XI, 108)