“The Cask of Amontillado” has remained one of the more perplexing of Poe’s stories, and is frequently anthologized. It is told from the point of view of Montresor, who seems to be speaking to someone (an auditor – “You, who so well know the nature of my soul…”) and who includes and omits information from his own story – making him, to most readers, a rather unreliable narrator (a phenomenon generally only associated with the first-person point of view).
What does Montresor include, and more importantly, what does he omit in his recreation of the situation? How does he portray Fortunato? How does he portray himself? What are your thoughts, observations, and questions on “The Cask of Amontillado,” especially in relation to NARRATION and POINT OF VIEW?
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In the first paragraph, we learn that Montresor “had borne as best I could…the thousand injuries of Fortunato…but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.” This is the most direct statement of motive for the murder of Fortunato we get in the story.
What is Montresor’s motive? What does it mean? How do you interpret Montresor’s words here? Is there more to his motive than we see in this statement?
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In the section on “Jungian and Myth Criticism”, your text tells us that “[a]ccording to Carl Gustave Jung (1875-1961) and his followers, the unconscious harbors universal patterns and forms of human experiences, or archetypes. We can never know these archetypes directly, but they surface in art in an imperfect, shadowy way…”
How might we see “The Cask of Amontillado” through the lens of the Jungian archetype? As archetypes, who are Montresor and Fortunato? How is their journey archetypal?
(Remember, an archetype is a recurring symbol, something or someone we all understand as a type – “the snake with its tail in its mouth, rebirth, the mother, the double, the descent into hell” are examples your text gives. Your task here is to try to understand “The Cask of Amontillado” in these kind of Jungian symbolic terms. Here’s a good place to start: think about Montresor’s coat of arms – “A huge human foot d’or (of gold) in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel.” How might the elements of the coat of arms correspond to the characters or their journey? Explore this or any other aspect of the story you see fit.)
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