Montresor finally had accomplished his revenge against Fortunato when he had finally covered him in the wall wherein he had told Fortunato that the cask of Amontillado was hidden.

Montresor’s devise for the trap to take revenge was the non-existent Amontillado which is a type of sherry and Fortunato had fallen into this very clever and very enticing trap. He even prodded Fortunato to fall in his trap by mentioning Luchesi, who was also a wine connoisseur and a rival of Fortunato. Montresor had carried out his plan of revenge by using Fortunato’s weak point which was the man’s weakness for alcohol. Fortunato on the other hand, was also unaware that he will fall victim to revenge amidst the jolly atmosphere. The character’s revenge was perfectly planned as it happened during the carnival season wherein merriment was in the air and no one would suspect that someone would be planning or be thinking of committing a dreadful act. He was emphasizing that revenge is the only way for him to attain justice and that the humiliation and the sufferings he had experienced in the hands of his friend Fortunato had consumed his patience that it was just fair to avenge all of Fortunato’s offenses against him would only be paid with Fortunato’s death. Montresor began his story by rationalizing the crime he was about to confess. The first line of the story clearly mentions the major theme of the story, “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.” (Poe 331). Common to all of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories, “The Cask of Amontillado” is a first person narrative giving the story an impression of being a confession from the character who had committed the crime.Īt the opening of the short story, it is evident that the theme of the story would be about Montresor’s vengeance against the other character Fortunato, a wine connoisseur. Deeply rooted hatred, revenge and other factors drove the main character Montresor in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” to mercilessly murder his friend Fortunato.

The cask of amontillado short story