Your best friend insulted you. Do you seek revenge or let it go? Many of us would think no more of it and go on with our lives, yet Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” is a short story where one character takes the common saying “taste of your own medicine” rather gravely and declares vengeance. Set in the dank, grimy catacombs of Italy during the “supreme madness of the carnival season” (Poe 1), the tale revolves around two characters, Montresor and Fortunato where Montresor, a psychopathic individual “vow[s] revenge” (Poe 1) against Fortunato, a wealthy, gullible, and fulsome man addicted to wine, after withstanding “the thousand[s] [of] injuries” (Poe 1) Fortunato has caused him. “The Cask of Amontillado” uses foreshadowing, irony, and symbolism to discreetly develop and move the story’s theme of revenge along, exposing Montresor’s sinister, yet humorous personality, Fortunato’s inhumane and ironic death, and Poe’s imperative use of symbols allowing the story to encompass a dreary, unsettling, yet profound significance and connotation altogether.
Foreshadowing is …show more content…
To begin, Montresor is the cohesion of the two French words, “mon trésor” which translates to “my treasure” in English. Taking that into consideration, Montresor’s treasure and prized possession is his amontillado, the component that helped exploit his perfect plan to kill his friend, resulting his name to become symbolic. Not to mention, the nitre in Montresor’s old family catacomb is symbolic as well. Montresor constantly warns Fortunato of nitre “the white web-work which gleam[ed] from the cavern walls” as they both walked through the vaults. Poe, however, uses the word “web-work” to illustrate the nitre as a spider’s web and a trap. Fortunato is literally walking into Montresor’s trap or his spider web and every step he takes to get closer to the amontillado is a step closer he to becoming the fly stuck in Montresor’s spider
Foreshadowing is …show more content…
To begin, Montresor is the cohesion of the two French words, “mon trésor” which translates to “my treasure” in English. Taking that into consideration, Montresor’s treasure and prized possession is his amontillado, the component that helped exploit his perfect plan to kill his friend, resulting his name to become symbolic. Not to mention, the nitre in Montresor’s old family catacomb is symbolic as well. Montresor constantly warns Fortunato of nitre “the white web-work which gleam[ed] from the cavern walls” as they both walked through the vaults. Poe, however, uses the word “web-work” to illustrate the nitre as a spider’s web and a trap. Fortunato is literally walking into Montresor’s trap or his spider web and every step he takes to get closer to the amontillado is a step closer he to becoming the fly stuck in Montresor’s spider