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Anthony Giorgio

Laurie Oberg

English 11

15 September, 2016

The Chilling Confidence of Montresor

The most fearsome characters in literature are almost never the faceless and grotesque

monsters of fantasy-horror. Nearly without fail, the most terrifying monsters are those of the

human variety: the kind that commit unspeakable horrors by allowing themselves to be caught up

in uniquely human affairs. This breed of monster shows the reader a piece of herself, and this is

what terrifies us most. Edgar Allan Poe is the master at this, and gives his audience a very

intimate view of murder in his short story, The Cask of Amontillado. Poes goal in this story is

to inspire this very personal and uncomfortable type of terror in the reader. He achieves this with

his narrators procedural tone and under-employing pathos, his extensive use of dramatic irony,

and his metareferential characterization of the audience. All of these bring the main characters

state of psychopathy far nearer to the reader and heightens his sense of terror.

Perhaps the most stunning choice in the narrative is the thorough lack of pathos on behalf

of Montresor, the main character and narrator. This is especially unique for the story because it is

centered around revenge (3), which is typically a highly emotive response. Instead, Poe opts for a

very cool tone, with Montresor matter-of-factly stating that At length[sic], I would be

avenged(3), stressing that Montresors revenge was not made in the heat of the moment, which

most people would arguably justify. Rather, it is coldly personal, procedurally logical, and

pre-meditated at length before its execution. In fact, there are no genuine emotional appeals on
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the part of Montresor throughout the entire story, with the only one exception of saying that his

smile was now at the thought of [his nemesis] immolation (3). He accounted for seemingly

every detail, revealing that he had made certain that his servants and any other members of the

household would be away for the night (5), for that is where he intended to murder

Fortunato--his erstwhile friend and current nemesis. Even up to the point where he commits his

revenge, Montresor describes the murder in very much the way one would write an instruction

manual, describing with procedural detail the way he chained Fortunato to the wall of the crypt

(8), and further when he walls Fortunato into his suffocating niche, enumerating each tier he lays

and even taking time to admire the masonry (9)! He seems so detached from the terrifyingly

cruel murder he commits, that his own handiwork is more deserving of his attention than the

human life he currently stifles.

In the story, Poe makes extensive use of dramatic irony, which heightens the sense of

dissonance and discomfort on behalf of the audience. In fact, Montresor repeatedly asks

Fortunato to discontinue their mission, to forget about the Amontillado, and to leave the crypt (4,

5, 7, 8), but Fortunato perseveres, playing even further into Montresors plot. Montresor, in

addition to being manipulative, displays a sick sense of humour, toasting Fortunatos long life

even as he lures him to his doom (6). This one action portrays both dramatic irony, as well as

characterizes Montresor in a very fundamental way. We can tell from this that we can not trust

anything he says to his friend, and that how he portrays himself in his own narrated thoughts is

his actual self; this makes the entirety of Montresors actions into one deft ironic twist, for we the

audience know that he is not actually as he portrays himself to the other characters of the story.

As a further example of this, in a joke to his inebriated friend, Montresor displays what will
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essentially become the murder weapon, showing Fortunato the trowel that he would use to wall

him into the crypt (7). All of these things, personally, added to my sense of terror and

disbelief--not because I couldnt believe it, but because I didnt want to.

All of the above techniques are rendered all the more powerful by one meta-referential

phrase placed at the very beginning of the text, in which Poe characterizes the audience rather

than one of his characters. Poe consciously breaks the fourth wall, but does so in character as

Montresor, and this brings the reader even nearer to the action. This account that Montresor

gives is addressed to the reader, whom he calls You, who so well know the nature of my soul

(3). This, I believe, is the key to the horror of this story. All throughout the narrative, the

protagonist distances himself from the action, making it less about passion and dignity, and more

about the cold satisfaction of revenge by murder, but with this one phrase, the audience is

brought uniquely close to the events of the story. By addressing the reader the way he has, Poe

elevates his audience from the level of lowly spectator to confidante. The reader is characterized

as someone to whom a person as terrible as Montresor would disclose his darkest

secret--presumably a friend of this murderer. I believe this forces the reader subconsciously to

engage even deeper with the text, trying all the while to determine the nature of his soul, and

deciding how well they actually know it. Because of this, everything that was so impersonal to

the narrator becomes very personal to the reader, and that makes all of Poes other tactics all the

more effective.

Edgar Allan Poes The Cask of Amontillado demonstrates Poes mastery of personal

terror, in a way that makes the audience feel a part of the heinous acts committed within its

pages. His special use of procedural tone, and extensive use of irony heighten the readers
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discomfort from beginning to end, and by addressing the audience is such a deft, tactful way, he

reminds us all that murders are still human, and they too have friends to whom they account their

exploits. It makes one wonder exactly how fictionalized Poes stories are--or by contrast, how

truly real they can be.

Works Cited
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Poe, Edgar Allan. The Cask of Amontillado. Elegant Ebooks, public domain. Web.