Throughout the story Montresor and Fortunato show that they are both very clever, but one of them becomes far more clever than the other. Characterization proves the theme that Fortunato's insults make an enemy of Montresor. Montresor becomes vindictive when Fortunato’s insults start turning towards his family. Montresor’s family motto is no one punishes him and gets away with it (Fields). This gives reason to believe that honor dictated that Montresor avenge the insults Fortunato laid at his feet.
Montresor also intends to be responsible for Fortunato’s death. Montresor does not want Fortunato to die of a cough or from the catacombs but of his own destruction. The drunken Fortunato is the only one in the story who is unaware of Montresor’s real motives. Furthermore, Montresor addresses Fortunato as his dear friend when they first encounter each other. Fortunato believes that Montresor is his friend when he intends to make a fool out of him.
In the online article “Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" the author states, “Montresor, who is the narrator of this disturbing short story, vows to get revenge on Fortunato for insulting him, and Montresor plans to seek retribution upon Fortunato to support his family motto "Nemo me impune lacessit" which means “No one assails me with impunity" in English” (Womack). For Montresor to keep his family’s motto, he has to get payback from anyone who does him wrong, including from his former friend Fortunato. Living by the family motto means if someone attacks a family member they must get revenge without getting caught. Not only has a character analysis showed that Montresor seeks vengeance upon Fortunato he also allows the readers to more of his bad character
By killing Fortunato, Montresor is also symbolically killing a part of himself that he is ashamed to possess. The act is not purely performed out of revenge, but subconsciously as a way to move past Montresor’s weaknesses. This does not play out for Montresor, because even fifty years after the incident, his account of the event in question is highly detailed. The murder has not left his mind, and it is not bound
The first type of irony in the story, “The Cask of Amontillado”, is verbal irony. The first thing Montresor says to Fortunato is ironic. Montresor says, “My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met” (237). Montresor wants Fortunato to think he wanted to see Fortunato, but in reality it was the perfect time for murder. Fortunato has a cold and is coughing.
His total obliviousness to the situation allows Montresor to take his revenge by easily manipulating Fortunato, starting when they meet at the carnival and lasting until Montresor chains Fortunato to the enclave’s wall (432). Poe introduces verbal irony through Montresor’s manipulative words, as the entire time Montresor is leading Fortunato down into the catacombs, he continuously badgers his drunken companion about the environment being bad for Fortunato’s health, even saying, “Your health is precious” (429). The voiced “concerns” qualify as verbal irony because the audience is already well aware that Montresor does not give a damn about Fortunato’s health and is only luring him into the catacombs to exact revenge. The third type of irony, situational, is not used by Poe until the end of the story when Montresor has almost completely sealed away Fortunato in the Montresor family tomb. When Fortunato stops yelling and making noise, Montresor immediately wants to know if he is still alive, so he drops “a torch through the remaining aperture….There came forth only in return a jingling of the bells” (432).
In Edgar Allen Poe’s story, “The Cask of Amontillado,” a man named Montresor has a feud with another man named Fortunato. Montresor decides to get revenge after Fortunato has consistently insulted him. Fortunato is a wine connoisseur, so Montresor uses that to trick him into going to the catacombs. While they are down there, Montresor gets Fortunato drunk, so that he will not realize what Montresor is doing. Montresor chains him and mounts a wall around him so he cannot get out.
In “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allen Poe, Fortunato wrongs his friend Montresor, the protagonist. Although what Fortunato did is unknown, Montresor seeks extreme revenge. Montresor completely blindsides Fortunato by doing this as he did not know he was in the wrong. A character analysis of Montresor reveals the theme of desire for revenge through exploitation of Fortunato. Montresor’s first way of exploitation is going out of his way to speak with Fortunato in a friendly way.
The story portrays how revenge is bittersweet, which shows that revenge is rarely as satisfying as we anticipate and often leaves the retaliator less content in the long run. At the beginning of the story, Montresor revealed he murdered a man named Fortunato 50 years ago. He was seeking revenge for unnamed wrongs and insults that Fortunato have made against him. Montresor wanted him dead so badly that he invented a plan
When he comes across Fortunato, the victim of this murderous plan, Montresor announces having bought a cask of amontillado during the carnival, capturing Fortunato’s attentiveness. Subsequently, he asked Fortunato, since he is deeply interested and has a grand and round knowledge on wine, to make sure he has not been deluded. Once Fortunato is determined to go check out the elegant wine, Montresor escorts him through his catacomb. As they trudged along underground, Fortunato’s cough got aggravated with the thick layer of niter on the walls, and as a remedy, Montresor gave him wine, resulting him to be even more intoxicated. As Fortunato’s excitement grew at the thought of amontillado, they entered a less spacious area, where Montresor promises it to be where the exquisite wine was placed.