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Montresor’s Revenge

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Edgar Allen Poe’s, “The Cask of Amontillado” tells a tale of deceit, loose tongues, and revenge. The story is narrated by Montresor, a man who feels that the injustice of which has been bestowed upon him by his acquaintance, Fortunato, should not go unpunished. The Narrator is consequently upset and goes on to plot a scheme and seek his revenge upon, Fortunato, without being detected. Montresor decides to use Fortunato’s attachment towards wine against him to lead to his downfall. Through the use of setting, point of view, and characterization the reader can understand that the theme of the poem is about Montresor’s fixation upon having revenge upon Fortunato. Edgar Allen Poe’s use of setting in “The Cask of Amontillado” paints a vivid scene within the reader’s mind. One of the many ways that Poe successfully uses setting is by having the story take place within Paris during the carnival season, which proves to be a cultural icon. In the fourth paragraph, the speaker mentions where the story is taken place by saying, “It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season”(525). In this sentence, Montresor identifies his surroundings by saying, “dusk” and “evening”, which gives the reader a since of time and place. The speaker also goes on to mention to the reader that the “carnival season” is comprised of people dressing up and drinking. During this time, Montresor takes the chance of luring Fortunato to his “palazzo”. The speaker starts to go further with his plans by luring Fortunato to his “vaults”, which tells the reader that both characters are going beneath Montresor’s house. The setting starts to take a turn as Montresor lures Fortunato in the “catacombs” within his vaults. The speaker describes the catacombs by saying, “Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris”(527). In this sentence, the speaker gives the reader a closer look of the surroundings of the two characters by describing it as “walls of human remains”, which is portrayed as a place of death. The reader can

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