|ENGLISH 102 | |[ ESSAY # 1 , Final Copy] | |“The Cask of Amontillado” | |Victor Grigorov | |2/22/2012 | The Cask of Amontillado The Cask of Amontillado, written by Edgar Allan Poe, is a story with the theme of revenge where the narrator Montresor tries to persuade the reader that his carefully crafted murder of Fortunato is deserved. The ominous tale is told through Montresor, a witty and sinister man who plots vengeance against Fortunato for insulting his family. Montresor’s family motto is "Nemo me impune lacessit," (159) which means, "No one dare attack me with impunity” (159), and he certainly lives up to these words. Since the narration is told through the character Montresor, the audience gets a dark look inside the evil thoughts of a man scorned, and is able to get closer to the cold heart of a killer. Throughout the story, Montresor tries to convince the reader that Fortunato is a cruel drunk, and his own plans for murder are just.
Like all tragic heroes Macbeth demonstrates he is doomed to make errors in judgment when he allows Lady Macbeth to convince him to commit murder in order to gain the crown. In addition we know that at the beginning Macbeth is good. He was rewarded the respected title Thane of Cawdor after the execution of the previous Thane. It is easy to identify with Macbeth as he is pushed by Lady Macbeth to commit the murders and faces the external and internal conflicts typical of a tragic hero. Another aspect of the tragic hero is that they are responsible for their own fate.
The words cask and casket have the same root. The relationship between the two represents the means to draw Fortunato down to the catacombs and then on to the bricked casket. Fortunato's passion for good wine leaves him impressionable to flattery, which Montresor provides. Amontillado symbolizes pleasure and greed, and Fortunato is willing to travel through a graveyard to get what he wants. The need for wine betrays him, and the Amontillado signals his downfall.
His plan of action was almost complete if he was able to murder Cassio. Iago’s motives are told throughout the entire play such as, seeking revenge due to the fact that Othello was given the title of lieutenant, throwing out accusations of him sleeping with his wife. In the end he is handed over to the torturers where he finally is quiet and stops giving reasons. Critic Robert Heilman (1956) states “lago’s case is too good; as a hunter of motives has bagged more than the legal limit” (pg.33). Othello is susceptible to lago’s evil.
Montressor, the stingy and the shady My impression on Montressor is that he is a very stingy and shady person throughout the entire story. He is offended by Fortunato’s insult, and Montressor suddenly has the urge to murder Fortunato for making such insult. Montressor is shady because he used wine to trick Fortunato to go into the wine cellars of the latter’s palazzo, where they wander in the catacombs, which is deep below the ground. Then Montressor used reversed-psychology to lure Fortunato to proceed further down to the catacombs of the palazzo to reach the pipe of Amontillado, which happens to be a rare and valuable wine. Montressor is stingy because he purposely showed Fortunato his family’s coat of arms, “a golden foot crushing a snake whose fangs are embedded in the foot’s heel,” this imply that though the person attacking him and his family may be venomous and dangerous, but they will not get away without being punished severely.
All the irony in the tale alludes to the idea of an insane narrator. The writer also provides a number of instances where symbolism is used to emphasize the theme. The heart in the first place symbolizes the narrator’s strong guilt of the crimes he committed. He seemed to hear the heart of the old man beat after he had murdered him beat. This was because of the guilt of murdering the man and the fear of being caught.
I think Shakespeare did this so the audience could see how despite the temptations on him, Banquo reacted and represented a man of honor. Three murderers hired by Macbeth kill Banquo. His son, Fleance, escaped from the murderers and he lived. When the three murderes tell Macbeth that the job is done, he sees Banquos ghost sitting on his chair and everybody thinks he’s going crazy
They encounter the satyrs, who are the chorus and their drunken father Silenus, who has been enslaved by a Cyclops. Odysseus offers to trade wine to Silenus in return for food for his hungry crew. Being a servant of Dionysus, Silenus cannot resist obtaining the wine despite the fact that the food is not his to trade. When the Cyclops arrives, Silenus is quick to accuse Odysseus of stealing the food, swearing on all the gods and the satyrs' lives that he is telling the truth. His son, a younger and more modern Satyr, tries to tell the truth to the Cyclops in an attempt to help Odysseus.
Though his planned maneuver to murder his uncle Claudius, the contrast between his feigned madness and Ophelia’s true madness, and his ability change behavior around different characters that possess his trust, Hamlet’s true, rational condition emerges from beneath his veil of insanity. Hamlet is not truly mad because he is merely using the guise if madness as part of his plan to murder Claudius. After the ghost of old King Hamlet relates the dreadful story of his demise to the young prince Hamlet realizes that his abhorrence of his uncle Claudius is wholly justified. To avenge his father’s murder, Hamlet valiantly uses his keen mind to devise a plan that will confuse Claudius and lure his uncle into a false sense of security. Hamlet decides the best method of deception to trick Claudius is to pretend that he suddenly becomes a raving lunatic.
This man's murder reminds me of the narrator's killing in "The Tell-Tale Heart". The narrator believed if he killed the old man, it would "rid myself of the eye forever". By the narrator talking to himself in the beginning of the story before the killing, you would of assumed that he was insane. On the other hand, he showed he was a little sane, because he had guilt after his gruesome murder. The narrator's nervous, jumpy, and jittery actions with the cops illustrated that he did in fact have a little remorse for what he had done.