The Cask Of Amontillado Theme Essay

In “The Cask of Amontillado,” Poe takes readers on a twisted journey inside the mind of a madman. Poe is often remembered for the dark themes present in his stories which can often be attributed to his difficult life. Poe uses irony to develop his theme of a man who seeks salvation through repression.
From an early age, Edgar Allan Poe experienced many hardships. By the time Poe had turned three, his father had already left the family and his mother had died of tuberculosis. After the death of his mother, he was sent to live with foster parents, John and Frances Allen. Poe developed a bond with Frances, but he never seemed to see eye to eye with John. To Poe’s despair, Frances passed away from Tuberculosis later in his life. While living in …show more content…
According to Roger Platizky, “To a significant degree, Poe's fear of live burial had a cultural counterpart. J. Gerald Kennedy and others have shown that premature burial was a preoccupation in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America and Europe largely because death was more often in the hands of the medical community and funerals had become secularized.” At the time that Poe wrote “The Cask of Amontillado,” being buried alive was a historical reality and a rational fear. To prevent this from happening, coffins and vaults at that time were often fitted with contraptions that would allow for the person inside to escape or alert someone on the outside that the person inside the coffin was not dead. One way that this was done was through the use of bells. At the slightest amount of movement from within the coffin, an external bell would sound alerting someone on the outside. Ironically, in the story, Fortunato was dressed as a jester and had bells on his hat. The bells on his hat are symbolic of the coffin contraptions at that time. However, unluckily for Fortunato, the bells on his hat did not help him out of his sticky situation or ensure his …show more content…
He instead takes matters into his own hands and delivers to Fortunato what he believes is just. Montresor convinced Fortunato that the cask of Amontillado was at the bottom of the vault, but there was really no wine at the bottom. There was never really any wine, but Montresor used the thought of it to deceive Fortunato into following him deep into the vaults. Montresor chained an intoxicated Fortunato to the wall and slowly entombed him brick by brick. Therefore, Fortunato was effectively buried alive without anybody around to know of the horrific deed. This short story is full of deception and ignorance. It has a strong theme of betrayal and forms a central conflict of