the cask of amontillado summary and analysis

In these Catholic countries, the carnival season was the last chance to have fun before Lent-a forty-day period of fasting and penitence-so there was a great deal of merriment. Usually lasting a week or more, it was a time for parties, feasts, parades, and costumes. The carnival season in eighteenth-century Italy and France was the highlight of the year. These uncertainties of time and place may seem frustrating to curious readers, but they add-as perhaps Poe intended-to the aura of mystery in the story. The Masons, of whom Fortunato is a member, founded their Italian and French branches in 1726, and the roquelaire that Montresor wears was a popular fashion accessory in the 1700s and early 1800s.

Furthermore, the narrator uses French words like “flambeaux” (torches) and “roquelaire” (cape), shares two bottles of French wine with Fortunato during their descent into the vaults, and refers in the beginning of the story to the weaknesses of Italians, naming Fortunato and “his countrymen” in the same breath, thus implying that Montresor himself is not Italian.Īs for the time in which the story is set, most clues point to the 1700s or early 1800s. Although the name of the narrator’s enemy, Fortunato, sounds Italian, the narrator himself, Montresor, has a French name. Some disagree, however, and place the story in France. Most critics agree that the story is set somewhere in Italy, as the narrator’s references to his “palazzo” (the Italian word for palace) and his knowledge of Italian wines seem to indicate.

It is even uncertain exactly where and when the story takes place. As a result, many questions raised in “The Cask of Amontillado” go unanswered. Any other details, he thought, should be left out. He believed that every detail in a story should be chosen carefully so that it helped to contribute to the mood he was trying to create. One of the rules Poe followed in his writing was to avoid excess. Events in History at the Time the Short Story Takes Place An ambiguous setting Leading readers there, the narrator relates a mysterious, horrifying story from his past. Poe sets most of the story in the gloomy underground tomb of a European aristocrat, far from the familiar United States. The story’s focus-revenge-and its climactic scene-burial of a living man-were chosen in part to fit the American reader’s appetite. Written in an era that valued sensational subjects, “The Cask of Amontillado” is a perfect example of this link to America. A short story set in the 1700s or early 1800s in Italy or France published in 1846.Īn aristocrat lures his enemy into an underground passageway with an offer of rare wine and buries him alive there.Įvents in History at the Time the Short Story Takes PlaceĮvents in History at the Time the Short Story Was WrittenĮdgar Allan Poe’s horror stories have always been associated with his own tragic life, but they are also closely tied to American popular culture in the 1800s.

The cask of amontillado summary and analysis