The Cask Of Amontillado Literary Analysis

What would one expect as a response to a grave insult from a friend? Would you seek legal retribution or perhaps walk away? In “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, our main character does neither of these things. Instead, the proud Montresor seeks to be both the jury and the executioner through secret murder and revenge. This dark story of punishment without proof is laid out for us through imagery surrounding both the setting and the characters.

A story woven around a deep need for revenge should start with a detailed rendering of the grievances that the lead character has endured. And yet in this story the audience is not given any concrete example of wrong doing. With the very first line, Poe shows the reader the mindset

In most stories the actual geography plays a strong role, however in this story the setting of Italy is almost irrelevant. The setting of the carnival is an important foundation for the horror of a murderous end. The carnival represents the removal from respectable social behavior generally reserved for revelry and merriment and yet in this story the departure from respectable social behavior is a murder based on perceived wrong doings. Even more critical to the dark nature of the plot is the fact that they meet on a dark street and then move to Montresor’s vaults. Stronger imagery comes from the duo traveling through Montresor’s vaults, “a great stone palace”, where he claims to keep his wine. This descent deeper and deeper in to his vault represents the character’s clear journey to hell where unproven injustice is painfully revenged. “We could see the bones of the dead lying in large piles along the walls. The stones of the walls were wet and cold. From the long rows of bottles which were lying on the floor, among the bones, I chose one which contained a very good wine.” This imagery of the vault draws to mind the catacombs far more than a wine cellar of a friend. We know of these catacombs being used throughout history. “So it went to the tunnels, moving bones from the cemeteries five stories underground into Paris’ former quarries. Cemeteries began to be emptied in 1786, beginning with Les Innocents. It took the city 12 years to move all the bones from the bodies numbering between 6 and 7 million into the catacombs. Some of the oldest date back as far as the Merovingian era, more than 1,200 years ago.”