Sunday, May 19, 2013

How does the narrator feel when he first sees Fortunato in "The Cask of Amontillado"? What conclusion might the narrator's behavior lead you to...

When the narrator (a man named Montresor) first sees Fortunato at the carnival, he claims that he was so pleased to see Fortunato that he almost could not stop himself from shaking the man's hand, and he greets Fortunato with pleasant words. Throughout the whole story, Montresor is exceedingly polite to Fortunato, but he is also false; not only is he lying about having a cask of Amontillado, he is also falsely reluctant to interrupt...

When the narrator (a man named Montresor) first sees Fortunato at the carnival, he claims that he was so pleased to see Fortunato that he almost could not stop himself from shaking the man's hand, and he greets Fortunato with pleasant words. Throughout the whole story, Montresor is exceedingly polite to Fortunato, but he is also false; not only is he lying about having a cask of Amontillado, he is also falsely reluctant to interrupt Fortunato's partying at the carnival and falsely worried about Fortunato's health down in his vaults.


These actions tell us that Montresor is a very determined man and that he is willing to do whatever it takes to get revenge on Fortunato. He is not afraid to lie to the man who was once his friend, he is not afraid to manipulate the obviously drunk man, and he is not afraid to wall the man into a recess in the depths of his vaults, sentencing him to a slow death. He is also cunning enough to come up with this particular plan. So, because of his actions within the story, we can see that Montresor is a smart and tenacious man, who has no problem murdering a man for insulting him.

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