Based on The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe:
Poor Fortunato. Amontillado. What was he thinking? Amontillado. How did he fall so easily? Amontillado. Striding to his death so foolishly: Amontillado! Poe is a great writer! I love the way he builds this story. It is dramatic - and touching.
“THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.”
The beginning of this story could not be more enthralling! It finishes the story even before it starts. The first paragraph goes on to put the reader in the mind of the reporter and explain his rationale for the malevolence he is about to commit. The language and decisiveness of the speaker is compelling and - at least for me - almost amusing in the somewhat bitter expression of the speaker's resolve, but the end of the story leaves a soft reader with awe and quietness: the speaker meant business.
“At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely, settled --but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk.”
I could imagine the flaming eyes of the speaker as he reported this account: unforgiving even after the death of Fortunato. He would not be appeased. The heat of his resolution seems like what precluded the 'idea of risk.' Fortunato did not live to serve punishment.
“I must not only punish but punish with impunity.”
The speaker was also resolved to be guiltless no matter the length he went. Fortunato's blood was upon his crime and his children could blame his misfortune on him. He was going to serve time for his insensitive words, and only a sudden distaste for wine could save him. Unfortunately for Fortunato, help was not within his instincts.
“I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation.”
A weird sense of the speaker's pleasure as he describes here gripped me until I pricked myself. His satisfaction was sinister, but I could well identify with it. It was the gratification of an idea before its employment, the ease of the problem at the thought of a good fix. In the midst of a great festival, Fortunato was in deep trouble, but he did not know. Help was all around, but the speaker's accomplice was within Fortunato. Amontillado.
"Luchresi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry."
"And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for your own.
"Come, let us go."
"Whither?"
"To your vaults."
The conspirator plays a good act, and Fortunato's ego thrives. There was no room for suspicion even in a catacomb. Oh Fortunato! How blind could you be? Your world must be as sweet as your taste!
Bells kept jingling in the procession of Fortunato's last walk. His conspirator remained as patient and persuasive, leading his quarry to his con.
"Come… we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible.”
I imagine Fortunato's head swelling. This was the ultimate medicine for his cough.
“Besides, there is Luchresi -“
This was the peak of the yet uninterrupted praise, and Fortunato quickly interrupt the new direction toward his rival,
"Enough… the cough's a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough."
Yes Fortunato. A cough cannot kill your majesty, but this man will. Therefore, it was that as a silly prey Fortunato was led to his trap; baited by his egotistical virtuoso. Seeing the dead around him, but exalted above reason by his counterpart and intoxication.
After the last brick was put in place, much after the last joke was told, Fortunato was quiet - perhaps, now among the dead. Amontillado. What started as a riveting story with a witty proclamation of a man's rage and threat ended with the silence of shock. I cannot stop wondering if he really left Fortunato there to die.
“A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.”
Amontillado. In pace requiescat!
Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe." Edgar Allan Poe, Short Stories, Tales, and Poems. Web. 03 Mar. 2011. <http://www.poestories.com/read/amontillado>.
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