It is often said that the strongest emotion in the world is love. Love may be the strongest emotion, but the most violent one is pride. In everything from the Conquests to the generations-long family feuds of the Deep South, pride is the igniting factor. Poe’s short story The Cask of Amontillado is an exemplary story of the lengths a man will go to in order to assuage his wounded pride. As the character of the Narrator develops, the reader is shown the dangers of being held by pride, bent on revenge. Montresor moves from being slighted to focusing on retribution, consumed by his growing hatred. He holds himself in such high esteem that he is incredulous that someone like Fortunato would ever think to hold themselves as his equal.
The opening line of the story begins to alert the reader to the twisted journey they are about to embark upon in the rest of the narrative: “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge” (1). It is important to note the diction in this sentence. Fortunato did not actually insult anyone. He merely ventured upon an insult. He sees repeated slights to his pride, and it angers him beyond belief. While the “thousand injuries” seem ambiguous, it is a representation of how many times men like Fortunato have slighted the narrator in his mind, either by action or word. This is the first indicator that there is something amiss in the Narrator’s reasoning, and the first we see of him absolving himself of any guilt. After all, a thousand injuries would drive the sanest man to madness.
Montresor, our Narrator, believes himself a true virtuoso and seems to despise any who are not. He speaks scathingly of the deceptive Italians who, like Fortunato, “practice imposture upon the British and Austrian millionaires” (1). The narrator’s life seems to have somehow gotten wrapped up completely in his hatred for men such as Fortunato, and one may deduce that the “thousand injuries” that Montresor had suffered through were, in fact, incidents of annoyance or slights, purveyed upon him by these “quacks”. The reader may begin to deduce here that Montresor holds himself in a much higher esteem than his peers do, and it enrages him. His jealousy grows until it is all-consuming, and he seeks for an easy target for his anger. Much like a playground bully, he seeks out a man that he deems weak enough to conquer – and his gaze stops upon the hapless Fortunato. This merry drunk is the perfect target, and Montresor seems to have obsessed over the idea until his vision narrows to the point that he seems to think ridding himself of Fortunato will rid him of these counterfeit Italians. Montresor is taking his first steps in the story into becoming a Grim Reaper of sorts, as his thoughts move from jealousy to murder, and he decides upon death for Fortunato. He proceeds into the story with a sense of righteous duty, seeking to rid the world of the horrible affront of Fortunato’s atrocious misrepresentations.
Montresor attempts to make his audience understand that he simply has no choice in the matter, as he states: “A wrong is unrepressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unrepressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong” (1). The Narrator is indicating that this slight is required to be punished. He must make Fortunato feel as he himself feels, and he is required to do it without being punished. Montresor indicates much about himself by his choice punishment. He walls Fortunato alive into the depths of the catacombs. From this choice we may gather that Montresor feels as though he too, is dying slowly, surrounded by the skeletons of real virtuosos, as Fortunato was accompanied by previous generations of the Montresoris. No one can hear Fortunato in his living tomb, as no one can hear Montresor fighting for the life of the real virtuoso.
Montresor’s statement about redressing wrongs gets juxtaposed against the Montresori “motto” that the Narrator fabricates later in the tale. He describes it to Fortunato as “A huge human for d’or, in a field of azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel” (3). This juxtaposition is incredibly important, as it shows not only the attitude, but the forethought to Montresori’s actions. There are a couple of interesting things to note in Montresor’s mottos. The rampant, or flourishing, serpent represents the ‘quacks’ like Fortunato. They started out as not a huge problem, but have taken over, a menace to true Italians. The serpent’s fangs are embedded in the heel of a gold foot, representative of
the true virtuosos like Montresor being attacked by these imposing snakes. The foot is crushing the serpent, foreshadowing Montresor’s intentions to crush Fortunato, and symbolically, the men who are like him. Just as no one would look awry at a man clearing out rats or other vermin, so does Montresor expect to continue after getting rid of these human vermin.
The Narrator takes his role as Death very seriously. Montresor has managed to dismiss his servants with no suspicion, forbidding them from leaving the house, while announcing that he will not return until morning. Naturally, this ensures the fleeing of the household staff to enjoy the Carnival celebration. He wears a black cloak and mask, shielding his identity from any who may remember seeing him lead Fortunato from the celebration. He further keeps Fortunato interested, feigning concern over his cough, rousing his jealousy by mentioning another wine connoisseur that could help him instead, and pouring wine down the throat of the hapless man.
Even in the final scene, Montresor’s need to assuage his pride is evident. He has chained up the unsuspecting Fortunato and has him mostly bricked into a catacomb. He pauses to engage in a conversation with Fortunato, mocking Fortunato’s attempts to laugh off the horrible scene. Once Fortunato falls silent, Montresor isn’t satisfied. As he says “…I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew impatient” (6). Here, at the last stages of his plan, Montresor needs to know that Fortunato does indeed realize that he is being punished for his
imagined transgressions. When there is no reply but the jingling of Fortunato’s bells, Montresor begins to grow sick. He pushes off the feeling as being only from the wet atmosphere of the catacombs, and finishes bricking off his “friend”. He brags to the reader that no man has found out the crime in the last fifty years – punished without impunity indeed.
While this story, on the surface, is about pride and hatred, on a deeper level, it is about light and darkness, good and evil – those age-old forces that drive the most meaningful stories. A close read of this work reveals Poe’s masterful use of death imagery and symbolism to purvey the battle between life and death.
The first time we see our two characters together is at Carnival. Fortunato is drinking and making merry, and in the words of the narrator, “the man wore motley” (1). “Motley” here indicates the colorful suit of a Jester, right down to the “conical cap and bells” (1). Here, Fortunato is symbolically representative of laughter and life, as he dances about rosy faced from drinking. On the contrary, the Narrator is sober, somber. He is dressed in all black and dons a black mask as he leads Fortunato away from the party, much as the Grim Reaper leads one away from the celebration of life, descending into death.
This feeling of descending to doom continues as Death leads the Jester further into the depths of the catacombs. The nitre on the wall increases as they go deeper, and the air
grows ever fouler until it becomes so bad at the deepest levels that the “foulness of the air cased our flambeaux rather to glow than flame” (4). Even the light is unable to penetrate this place of death. There are bones and skeletons everywhere, indicating that this place is a house of death. In the literal sense, it is, for the catacombs are repose for the dead, and for the storage of wine, which is of itself made from rotten, dead fruits. Both times when the Narrator becomes unsettled with his task, the catacombs reassure him, as death is comforted by his home. The “solid fabric of the catacombs” (5) reaffirms that he is doing what he must, and he turns to being satisfied with his tortures.
Even at the very end, Montresor is the embodiment of death. For while Fortunato did indeed die in the catacombs, his death would have set him free of his incessant cough and all other such worries of life. He leaves the earth, leaving a shell behind, as all life is destined to end. Montresor, on the other hand, continues to walk the Earth, as Death is destined to roam, telling his tale of the dangers of malfeasance.
Poe’s powerful story combines strong death imagery and symbolism with masterful juxtapositions and ironies to create a story that truly becomes a warning on not only the dangers of pride, but also proclaiming oneself falsely. For while everyone at the party may laugh and toast you, and you may be “a man to be missed” (3), when death comes to call, there will be no escape for you. Fortunato would certainly have met Death no matter how he had lived his life, for such is the fate of all men. Yet had he not lived his life as a false man,
putting on airs to impress others, his death verily may have been much more peaceful than being wrapped into the “solid fabric of the catacombs” (5) to lie in repose for the rest of time.
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