45 pages • 1 hour read
Edgar Allan PoeThe Cask of Amontillado
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1846A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
A Vow of Revenge
The theme of revenge is prominent throughout the text. Vengeance is the narrator’s murder motive and drives the events of the story. Montresor feels he has been wronged by Fortunato—although the reader is never told why—and he sets out to enact a devious plan to avenge himself. The thematic exploration of revenge is most apparent in the opening and closing of the story. The initial part of the story lays out Montresor’s intent as well as his philosophy on vengeance, and the final part brings his act of revenge to a head, revealing his lack of remorse for his actions.
The story’s opening lines launch the reader directly into Montresor’s narrative of revenge. He speaks of the “thousand injuries of Fortunato” and how he has ventured upon an insult that causes Montresor to vow, “At length I would be avenged” (161). He states that his resolution outweighs any risk it might bring to him, demonstrating his total devotion to revenge. Nevertheless, Montresor goes on to state that he “must not only punish but punish with impunity” (161), meaning his plan must not incur his incrimination or punishment. It must be definitive because, as Montresor explains, a wrong cannot be redressed if the redresser faces retribution. Likewise, he says, a wrong is not redressed if “the avenger fails to make himself felt” to the one who has done him wrong (161). Thus, in a biting tone, the narrator establishes his intention for revenge and introduces his philosophy of vengeance.
Revenge as a theme is also evident at the story’s conclusion when Montresor is walling Fortunato up into the catacombs. Although he momentarily hesitates at the “succession of loud and shrill screams” (166), Montresor ultimately places his hand on the solid wall of the catacombs and feels satisfied with the job he has done. Montresor goes on to state, “Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones” (166), and he reveals that Fortunato’s body has been undisturbed for 50 years. “In pace requiescat” (166), he proclaims, meaning “Rest in peace” (211). With this final, flippant comment, Montresor shows no remorse, nor does he even question his actions. His revenge is complete, and he is content.
Deception and Devious Calculation
Montresor’s actions embody the theme of deceptive and devious calculation. This is evident throughout the entirety of his behavior in the story. Initially, Montresor divulges his feelings about his vengeance to the reader, but for the remainder of the story, he showcases the careful calculations to carry out his plan, up until the story’s climax when those plans come to fruition. His actions are all a performative ruse to the end of murder.
Montresor admits at the outset that he has hidden his enmity from Fortunato and has given him no reason to doubt his goodwill. Montresor continues “to smile in his face” (161), though Fortunato does not perceive that Montresor’s “smile now was at the thought of [Fortunato’s] immolation” (161). Thus, his attitude toward Fortunato has remained deceptively calm, collected, calculated.
Montresor likewise strategically lies throughout the tale. To lure Fortunato to the vaults, he tells Fortunato that he has bought Amontillado, a rare wine from Spain. Here, Montresor plays on Fortunato’s pride in his connoisseurship in wine, and Fortunato welcomes the chance to demonstrate his superior knowledge. When Fortunato suffers a fit of coughing from the potassium nitrate in the catacombs, Montresor also feigns concern for Fortunato, insincerely insisting that the two return to the surface for fresh air.
Another calculated deception is when Montresor ensures that his attendants will not stir in the house so as not to be interrupted in his plans. Montresor also, under various pretexts, repeatedly gives the already drunken Fortunato more wine as the story progresses so that Fortunato is too inebriated to know what is happening until it is too late.
Montresor only shows his true self at the opening and closing of the story. The story’s introduction informs the reader about his attitude toward Fortunato, and the closing is when he finally takes drastic action to fulfill his plans. For the length of the story, Montresor puts on an act, his very character comprising the theme of calculative deception. His façade effectively actualizes his revenge.
Death and Morbidity
Death and morbidity feature heavily as a theme in “The Cask of Amontillado,” examples including the descent into the catacombs and the nitre that provokes Fortunato’s cough. These references to death and disease provide foreshadowing for the ultimate conclusion of Fortunato’s demise.
Montresor’s catacombs—a definitive representation of death, as the final resting place of the deceased—are the primary setting for the story. As the two characters descend ever farther into the catacombs, ostensibly toward the Amontillado, they journey toward Fortunato’s fate. Upon entering the crypt, the narration states that the “walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead” (164). Fortunato is literally and figuratively walking toward his own death.
Like the catacombs, the nitre indicates decay. Nitre—also spelled “niter”—is potassium nitrate, which is a chemical produced by decomposing bodies. Not only do Montresor and Fortunato descend into a resting place for the dead, but they are also surrounded by bacteria resulting from the decomposition of those buried there. Furthermore, this nitre causes Fortunato to cough—another element of morbidity. When Montresor and Fortunato discuss the nitre, when Fortunato utters the key line that “the cough’s a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough” (163). Fortunato’s cough not only presents the theme of disease, but his words allude to his coming fate. He shall not die of a cough, it is true, because Montresor has other plans for him.
Death also thematically presents through the meaning behind the Amontillado—a word that Fortunato repeats several times—and the double meaning of “keystone” in relation to this. When Montresor places the final stone, the keystone, into the wall he has constructed, a second meaning of the word becomes apparent: “Keystone” can also refer to the valve where a tap is placed on a cask. The vault in which Fortunato is buried is the metaphorical equivalent of the cask, and thus, the Amontillado so often referenced in the text is a refrain toward Fortunato’s final resting place.
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By Edgar Allan Poe
