Montresor's Downfall

The Cask of Amontillado is a story, written by Edgar Allan Poe, about Montresor, the narrator, who wants to get revenge on Fortunato for insulting him. Throughout the story, Montresor leads a drunk Fortunato through an underground catacomb after he encounters him during the carnival season. Then, Montresor is able to fulfill his revenge plan in such a way that Fortunato never finds out he was mad until Montresor locks him up in a small crypt. Afterward, he walls up the entrance to the crypt and repositions the bones over the wall. After fifty years from that so-called “murder,” Montresor decides to tell the story. There are many different opinions on why he decided to tell the story fifty years later. Some believe that he was a sociopath and …show more content…
He uses Fortunato's weakness to wine to his advantage. Like when he meets him at the carnival, Montresor says, “I have received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, ”(cite) to trick Fortunato into thinking that he has a cask of amontillado in his vaults. A drunk Fortunato accepts this offer and unintentionally accepts his death. The narrator plans his revenge so well that he sends his servants to the carnival to make sure he does not get caught. In the story, it says, “I had told them that I should not return until the morning, and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house.” (cite) While in the vaults Fortunato begins to cough because of the nitre. Montresor plays on this and asks if he wants to go back, making it seem like he is trying to look out for Fortunato’s health. Because of this Fortunato still has no suspicion of what Montresor’s real plan is. Another tactical move by the narrator is when he says, “Medoc will defend us from the damps,” (cite) and has him drink more to help his cough. Obviously, this just makes Fortunato drunker and makes it easier for Montresor to trick him. His last part of his perfect plan is to lock him down in the vaults to make sure no one knows what happened. Montresor wanted to get revenge on Fortunato in secrecy and the best way to do that was by locking him down in his crypt. Furthermore, since there was already human bones down there if anyone …show more content…
Fortunato was an important person so many searches and investigations probably took place during those fifty years. Montresor knew that he would be asked questions by the police, and he never gave the police any suspicions that he was mentally unstable. (cite) If he did he would have been caught. Also, Montresor was sane enough to be able to tell the story without any lapses fifty years after he killed Fortunato. If he was mentally ill then it would have been obvious in the story that he was not entirely stable psychologically. Furthermore, there would have been clear evidence that Montresor is insane, but there is not evidence that he is a sociopath. People’s argument towards Montresor being a sociopath is that he obsessed over killing Fortunato just based on the fact that he was insulted. However, it is hard to label someone as insane just on limited information. There is no evidence given to what the insult was or how bad of an insult was. So, saying that Montresor was overreacting doesn’t prove that he is a