The Cask Of Amontillado Pride Essay

For class, we read “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was born in 1809 and died in 1894. He wrote about very dark and terrifying things. His writing affected the development of symbolic fiction, modern detective stories, and gothic horror tales. In a lot of his horror stories he writes as though the reader is vicariously “live” the story through the first person narrator. Poe wrote “The Cask of Amontillado” in 1846; it follows Montresor, a man who lives by the motto Nemo me impune lacessit or no one insults my impunity. He is a very cold and calculating man, who plans out his attack on Fortunato by getting him drunk and bringing him to the catacombs in the promise of fine wine, where he has a trowel, and cement blocks at the …show more content…
It is in Rome due to those catacombs and that snake across the underground, it also seems to take place around the same time it was written due to the story alluding to the abundance of freemasonry. The main conflict of the story is that Montresor is very prideful and will stop at nothing to destroy anyone who hurts that pride. This is shown when he states at the beginning that Fortunato insulted him and he must exact his revenge, which is overboard for just a simple insult that hasn’t seemed to have fazed Fortunato. Some symbolism in this story is their names, Fortunato meaning fortunate which is ironic as he was not, and Montresor which means to show fate, which alludes to him showing Fortunato to his fate in the catacombs. The overall theme of the story is morality, this is the case as there is a lot of bones, and death, and sickness, which makes both Montresor and Fortunato question their own mortality. This is shown when Fortunato denies he is ill and should not be in a damp cold area and that he thinks Montresor is joking when he trapped