Niter in the Cask of Amontillado

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Montresor, in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado, vows to take revenge on his supposedly good friend, Fortunato, chaining him in the catacombs underneath his home to rest with the other bodies for all eternity. Despite what he seems to be telling the reader, this character is not a sociopath driven by anger. Montresor is compelled to methodically cleanse his life of this stain. It is less an act of revenge than it is a cleansing ritual. The setting of the story raises it from a mere horror story to one of religious rebirth. As Montresor begins his story, he recounts the events that have led him to this action, albeit without many specifics. He only makes the comment that it was “the thousand injuries of Fortunato [which he] had borne as best [he] could”(61). The tale ends once Montresor has finished the walling up of this man. Simply put, a man is angered and has his retribution. But it is not Montresor’s way to be overcome by his emotions. He states that, “A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser” (61). While this could be a belief that he tries to live up to and fails or just lies to the reader, it is not in Montresor’s way to lie. Even when conversing with Fortunato, he never lies. When Fortunato states that his cough “will not kill [him]. [He] will not die of a cough” (64), Montresor’s only response is “True, true.” Throughout the tale, Montresor never lies to him. On the contrary, Montresor goes to extreme lengths to make his actions known to Fortunato, so there is no reason to disbelieve what he tells the reader. The element that adds to this story of resentment and revenge is the niter that lines the walls of the catacombs. Instead of placing the murder in a dark alley, in the country, or anywhere he might not get caught, Montresor lures Fortunato into a niter-lined series of tunnels. According to the Oxford English

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