The Cask of Amontillado - Edgar Allan Poe

It absolutely cannot be argued that Edgar Allan Poe had an ability to bring out the grey emotions within humans. His 1846 published short story, “The Cask of Amontillado” does exactly that. It brings out the grey emotion of revenge and ego within humans through a tale of obvious and planned deceit.

The short story that is set in an unexplained past revolves around two friends, Fortunato and Montresor and one among them is out to take a revenge on his friend through a deceit plan. Both the men love wine and in the wake of tasting some great wine both head to one of the two’s palace where unaware that the other one has kept his plan ready and then the obvious takes place. Also that in the last two lines the story takes a time leap with the murderer narrating the closure.

What is interesting to note is that author has again narrated the story from the point of view of the murderer like he had done it in one of his other short stories titled, “The Tell- Tale Heart.”

Readers of the story would surely have a divided opinion on the acts of the murderer and also his motive. Though there are references that the murderer takes the revenge for an insult but that aspect has been left upon the reader to conclude. It makes us think about human reactions and how those could be infinite. It also tells a story of a time when perhaps the term “Forgiveness” didn’t exist.

The writing style is different and the sentence structures takes us back into the good old times of classic literature.

Edgar Allan Poe had a specific style of conveying grey acts and it comes about at the most absolute terms in this short story. Interestingly, this short story has had many a publication adaptions and some comic book adaptions. It was also adapted into a British film in 1998 where Anton Blake and Patrick Monckton played the two principal characters of the story.

This short story is the kind of literature that makes us think about human nature and also allows us to introspect in the meantime.