Irony and psychology are strange bedfellows in this darkly humorous tale of revenge. The irony in this story, as the critic Charles May points out, works on two levels (79-80). The first stems from the organization or setting of the tale – which I'll call narrative irony. These are aspects that Montresor, as narrator, doesn't control, but that Poe, as creator of the narrative, certainly does. The second stems from Montresor's obvious relish in toying with Fortunato, knowing that he will soon be dead.
The most obvious example of narrative irony is the name of Fortunato. Doubly ironic – both lucky (as in fortunate or good fortune), and fated (Lady Fortune was reputed to be able to read it as in "It is my fortune to be . . .") – his name acts as a warning of the dangers of overweening pride (which lures him to his fate), and the dangers of intemperance. When Fortunato asks if Montresor is a mason and he (Montresor) pulls out a trowel, we get another doubly ironic joke and comic misunderstanding: Fortunato is refering to the Freemasons, whereas Montresor is refering to the means of Fortunato's death. These ironies act as a kind of foreshadowing, best appreciated upon rereading, when we can chuckle in delight over subltity and aptness of the double meanings.
On a more strictly verbal level, Montresor seems to delight in toying with an unknowing Fortunato, playing an elaborate game of wise cat and oblivious mouse. When he first accosts Fortunato on the street he tells him "you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking today!" (44). The luck here is, obviously, in the eye of the beholder. Later, as they descend deeper into the catacombs, he tells Fortunato, with feigned concern: "we will go back; your health is precious" (45). In a particularly awful exchange, Fortunato salutes the dead lying around them, and Montresor drinks to his (Fortunato's) "long life" (45) – and later offers him a “flagon of De Grave” (46) (get it? “the Grave”?). Montresor shows his malicious, though humorous, character by this. Goading his prey, he prolongs and heightens Fortunato's agony by pretending to care for him. Together, these two types of irony – narrative and verbal – add a layer stylistic richness, imparting a sense of the wit of the author.
Psychologically, the story shows Poe's understanding of the workings of the human mind, especially the monomania of revenge, the manipulative capabilities of pride, and the fears of the readers. Montresor's singleness of purpose and his careful planning reveals a mind focused on one thing: hatred for Fortunato. Narrating the story at what is apparently at the end of his life (it's been fifty years since the murder [47]), he's still fixated on the event. His confession (perhaps to a priest, someone who would “know the nature of [his] soul” [44]), is not for absolution; it reads more like an satisfied account of a job well-done. Yet even though told from a first person point of view by a person who delighted (and still delights) in his horrific actions, revenge is presented as a kind of parasite that consumes its host; after all this time and after being assured of his death, Montresor is still consumed by his hatred of Fortunto: his murder has not brought surcease to his murderer.
This monomania may account for his skill of manipulation. He plays upon Fortunato's “weak point” (44) by casually mentioning Luchesi's name first to get him to come, and then again whenever he thinks Fortunato's interest may be flagging. This constant repetition plays on Fortuanto's pride, who considers his sense of taste far superior to Luchesi's. As he says with disgust “as for Luchesi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado” (45). Later, Fortunato, stumbling from too much wine and the poor air and footing of the catacombs exasperatingly replies to a final mention of Luchesi, “He is an ignoramus” (46). To use an old phrase, pride definitely comes before the fall here, as readers can readily see how Fortuanto's overweening pride (and over something as mundane as a taste for wine) leads to his death. By appealing to his emtions, it makes him drop all caution and be led, like a lamb to the slaughter, further and further into what is, after all, a burial place.
Even the setting of the story is rich in psychological symbolism. The Russian Critic Mikal Bakhtin argued that “During carnival time life is subject only to its laws, that is, the laws of its own freedom” (7). Carnival's “freedom” exists outside the contraints of law or religion; in other words, outside the influence of the forces which proscribe and/or enforce the mores and social codes of a culture. Set against this backdrop, a time when people are encouraged to cast aside the restraints society in pursit of hedonistic pleasures, “Cask” illustrates the dangers of overindulging the id. This Freudian reading can be further illustrated by the descent into the crypt. This not only evokes a sense of claustrophobia and an obvious allusion to graves, it also suggests a slow descent into the unconscious of Montresor. Only after delving deep into the unconsious, into the savage and primitive world of the id, can such acts be consumated. Of course, this was written long before Freud had articulated his theories of the unconscious, yet it shows how artists long before Freud had given these ideas names and had recognized and exploited them in fiction.
Readers would also experience a shiver of pleasant dread at the mere thought of being buried alive. Before the days of EKGs made death a clinical reality, determining the end of a life was a mixture of science and guess work. Because pulses can become erratic or difficult to detect in some people, and because respiration can become so shallow as to be undetectable, the seemingly simple task of declaring a person dead was fraught with difficulties. A mirror held to a nose and checked for condensation was one common test. But what if the mirror were held at the wrong angle? This fear is, of course, the basis of our current practice of waking the dead. Initially, a wake was, literally, a chance to see if the people would “wake.” There were regular reports of people rising up out of their coffins, scratches on the inside of coffin lids from exumed bodies, or of a sudden cough at a funeral suggesting that old Uncle Ezra had a bit more life in him. Entrepenurs marketed coffins outfitted with breathing tubes, so that you would not suffocate, or burial vaults with locks that could be opened from the inside. Poe captilized upon this fear of being buried alive, and the fact that readers loved to have their deepest fears dramatized, in much of his fiction (“The Fall of the House of Usher” is another prominent example). As Poe describes how Fortunato “descended, . . . and descended again,” he picks up on a primal fear – a fear which was definite presence in the minds of his readers.
Another aspect of the story with strong symbolic resonance for nineteenth-century readers is the connection Poet makes between a crypt and wine. The nineteenth-century was a period of many reform movements, and temperance – or abstinance from alchol – was one of the most prominent. David Reyonld's, in his Beneath the American Renaissance, notes that after the 1830s, temperance literature took a darker turn, often filled with sensational tales of the slow slide into debauchery and eventual grisley deaths of alcholics (65-72). This explains Poe's symbolic mixing?? Of skeletons and wine: “We had passed through walls of piled bones, with casks and puncheons intermingling” (46). For contemporary readers, the message is clear – drinking leads to death, and given the cultural strictures against drinking, both of the main characters, Fortuanto and Montresor, are tainted by their love of wine. This taint helps illustrate the dangers of intemperance by aligning them with the dangers of revenge. In this tale of a man with seemingly no conscience – and who seemingly is not punished for his evil deed, Reynolds suggests that this theme of intemperance adds a moral dimension lost to modern readers – but readily apparent to contemporary ones (72).
need info on alcohol consumption see this site -- this one isn't cited.
The idea of a morality was particularly important in nineteenth-century America – a time when many considered fiction merely as a vehicle to pleasingly frame moral pieties. In a survey of American Antebellum magazine cricitism of fiction, Nina Baym noted that one criteria reviewers took for granted about the fictional characters "was that they have an inseparable moral aspect to them, on account of which characters may be not only told apart, but placed as sympathetic or unattractive" (88). Of course, the question is, how can a story ostensibly about an unrepentant and unpunished murderer be moral? The answer lies in the outcome of the deed. As noted earlier, Montresor remains haunted by his sin, obsessively recalling every detail. His cold, detached air and complete lack of explanation define him as a man apart, a Caine-like figure difficult to feel empathy for. A close reading of his family arms also calls into question the efficacy of his revenge. Yes the “foot crushes [the] serpant,” but note that the “fangs are embedded in the heel” (45). Apparently, it wasn't only Fortunato who died in the crypt, as Montresor's fervered retelling of the event reveals. It's clear that, at some deep, profound level, Montresor walled up his own soul, burying himself along with Fortunato deep in the underground crypt. Read in this manner, Poe seems to suggest the old theme of revenge turning back on itself and consuming the revenger. Vengence, it seems, is still the Lord's.
The final exchange between Fortunato and Montresor is enigmantic. Why does Montresor repeat ? And note when Fortuanto remains dumb (after Montresor repeats “for the love of God!”
cf. “The Cask of the Amontillado”
“Carnival laughter is the laughter of all the people. Second, it is universal in scope; it is directed at all and everyone, including the carnival's participants. The entire world is seen in its droll aspect, in its gay relativity. Third, this laughter is ambivalent: it is gay, triumphant, and at the same time mocking, deriding. It asserts and denies, it buries and revives. Such is the laughter of carnival.
Let us enlarge upon the second important trait of the people's festive laguther: that it is also directed at those who laugh. The people do not expldue themselves from the wholeness of the world. They, too, are imcomplete, they also die and are revived and renewed. This is one of the essential differences of the people's festive laughter from the pure satire of modern times. The satirist whose laughter is negative places himself above the object of his mockery, he is opposed to it. . . . The people's ambivalent laughter, on the other hand, expresses the point of view of the whole world; he who is laughing also belongs to it” (Bakhtin Rabelais 12)
This view of laughter suggests that Montresor is somehow above it? Uneffected by it all?
What the author/critics say:
"Ambiguous ceremonies of farewell dominate Pigeon Feathers [the collection "A&P" is taken from], as maturing characters begin to realize how far they have receded from the past and strive to accommodated themselves to the present" (Luscher 23).
"Unhappiness in an Updike story moves the character not to large-scale significant action but to quiet frustration, and thus some readers respond by saying that nothing happens. Plot and characterization often give way to layers of meaning usually dependent upon an image or a gesture so that dramatization becomes meditation. The question to ask, it seems to me, is not what happens but what is felt or exposed" (Greiner 92).
Afterward to "___"
consider the role of silence in this story.
Repetition as well.
© 2008 David Bordelon