what is Poe´s cask of Amontilado about?greenspun.com : LUSENET : The Work of Edgar Allan Poe : One Thread |
Has Monstresor his perfect revenge?
-- Anonymous, February 20, 2002
Ultimately, the tale is about a murder, a perfect murder of revenge, that is not discovered for half a century--the death of Fortunato by Montressor. The Poe Perplex at the Naval Academy (see http://www.nadn.navy.mil/EnglishDept/poeperplex/amontil.htm) suggests in its review that this tale by Poe "remains one of his most brilliantly written tales." (2 of 3. David Grantz, of The Poe Decoder, suggests in his essay, "That Spectre in My Path," [see http://www.poedecoder.com/essays/spectre/) that "Montresor represents the voice of Death, that Death is the actual narrator of the story. Grantz makes note of Silverman's belief this tale was Poe's own "mediation on the art and passion of revenge" (7 of 10). Grants goes on to state in his essay that "Silverman believes that it is no accident that the Montresor family motto 'Nemo me impune lacessit' is Scotland's motto, and that as one of her son's, 'Scotch' John Allan [Poe's adoptive father] much resembled Fortunato in being a man 'rich, respected, admired, beloved,' interested in wines, and a member of the Masons.' Poe likely had Allan in mind when formulating the vengence motif for the tale. Place the cap and bells on Fortunato may have tickled Poe at the root." I won't go into the history of insults suffered by Poe at the hands of his adoptive father. Grantz, as an added tidbit, suggests that Hoffman turns to the Freudian interpretation and suggest that "by interring Fortunato, Montresor at once has symbolically slain his own father and the rival of his mother's affection, and forever interred his own passion, his own fertility, his own vitality (224-25)."
-- Anonymous, February 20, 2002
who is telling the cask of Amontillado?
-- Anonymous, October 08, 2004