Perfect Revenge In The Cask of Amontillado By Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe’s stories are usually imaginary or a gothic tale. But however “The Cask of Amontillado” is not imaginary an imaginary gothic tale. The primary purpose of Poe writing this story was due to his literary feud with writers names Thomas Dunn English and Hiram Fuller. “It is tempting to read “The Cask,” as Mabbott himself does, as a “sublimation of Poe’s bitter feelings at the time”- as a fantasy of revenge, a vessel of wrath, as it were, or a cask brimming over with thwarted rage and the author’s desire to punish(and silence) those who had dared to humiliate him in print”(David 37).

Bitter feelings had developed in Poe as well which made him express it is writing in form of “The Cask of Amontillado”. He uses Montresor to represent himself taking his revenge on Thomas English and Hiram Fuller. These characters might be fiction, but the motive that Poe uses to write this story is realistic. Learning this also helps us understand why Poe made this story violent, and harsh. “The Cask of Amontillado” by Poe makes a perfect revengeful story for the readers.

However, he doesn’t necessarily imply how the perfect revenge by Montresor has affected him besides feeling sorry for Fortunato after the murder. “Poe begins by describing, in characteristically precise and logical detail, Montresor's (and Poe's) idea of the perfect revenge. At the same time, he needed to end his story by telling how his revenge had affected him. When Fortunate says, 'For the love of god, Montresor!' and Montresor repeats, 'Yes, for the love of God,' Poe is indicating that Montresor is already experiencing the closure he sought. Once he has punished Fortunate to his satisfaction, he can now feel sorry for his victim” ( Bill 1). Montresor does commit the murder but does feel pity after what he has done.

Instead, he should feel no pity as he has achieved and, completed his motive. Poe includes that Fortunato character as vulnerable to make the readers feel sorry for him. Based on my opinion this in many ways ruins the purpose of having the long-awaited revenge take place only to feel the pity afterward. Poe makes this minor mistake, therefore, making the perfect revenge lacking components like ruthless feel after the murder. There is another downside to Poe’s story which can be questioned. Although the entire story is about Montresor confessing his crime of murder of Fortunato, there is no investigation done or even mentioned in the story. “Nonetheless, in the absence of the figure of a detective, the central question of Poe’s story compels the reader to perform an intellectual act of detection himself. Moreover, this question requires that the reader reverse the process of solving the mystery” (Baraban 48). Essentially Poe uses Montresor’s crime to tell the story but does not tell what happened to him after he confessed his crime. That leaves the it up to the reader’s imagination to whether the story is over or not.

On the other hand, it also defeats the purpose of Montresor confessing his crime, and not getting any kind of punishment. Overall Poe uses Montresor as a character smartly to tell the entire story as the narrator but misses few important components like the aftermath of his confession. This leaves the aftermath to the reader’s imagination as to what happened to Montresor.