THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO
by Edgar Allan Poe, 1846

The Edgar Allan Poe story "The Cask of Amontillado" is one of his finest. It is especially notable for two reasons: its subtle, ironic treatment of a passionate but coldly calculated plot to bury a man alive to satisfy an aristocrat's honor; and its superb dialogue between the protagonist, the insulted nobleman Montresor, and his antagonist, the gross bourgeois Italian who has a purchased title, Fortunato. The dialogue amounts to a duel with words, which is unusual since Poe rarely depended much on dialogue in constructing his stories.

If "The Cask" seems simply a story of a clever and successful revenge, it is also the story of a failed quest that goes much beyond the simple search for the cask of Amontillado, a dark-colored Spanish sherry. Various images in the text suggest archetypal acts such as the quest for the original substance or the universal solvent, the quest for the Holy Grail, and the quest for Solomon's Secret Vault and the Stone of Foundation connected with the tetragrammaton (a Jewish and later a Masonic symbol). As a whole "The Cask" consists of two narratives, each of which has its appropriate dialectic and rhetoric. Montresor tells of the motive and the execution of the perfect crime he committed in the fictional past (50 years previously) to a silent, unidentified listener in the fictional present.

The story takes place in eighteenth-century France. Montresor was not a family name but is of French origin. It was the name of a countship, i.e., of a fief designated by the name. Montresor is the Count of Montresor. A real Count of Montresor, Claude Bourdeille (1606-63), conspired to assassinate Cardinal Richelieu. Poe knew him from Hamilton's Count of Gramont (1811) and possibly other sources. On the other hand Fortunato is the Italian form of the Latin fortuna or fortunatus, which means "fortunate" or "rich." When Fortunato refers to his wife, he calls her Lady Fortunato; hence, he himself is a nobleman, Lord Fortunato, Poe preferring to use English rather than French titles. But his indifference to Montresor's coat of arms and his lack of manners peg Fortunato as a bourgeois Italian, newly endowed with a purchased title, an anoblis, whereas Montresor is a noblesse d'épée, a man of the country instead of the court.

The murder of Fortunato takes place in the dungeons of Montresor's Italian Renaissance château, although in his pride of place he calls it his "palazzo." It is evidently located on a river somewhere in the Loire Valley. The telling of the murder takes place in Paris, and the catacombs mentioned are the so-called catacombs of Paris, originally the quarries from which limestone was taken for building the city. Paris had only one burial ground, La Cimetière des Innocents. But in 1785 the Council of State "decreed that the cemetery should be cleared of its dead," and it was decided that the bones taken from it should be deposited in the abandoned limestone quarries underneath the Plaine de Mont-Souris . This was done, and in 1786 the catacombs were consecrated by the church authority. Hence the action of Poe's "The Cask" can be almost precisely dated. The story cannot have taken place after the French Revolution that began in 1789, for Montresor, who sports a rapier in Poe's tale, would not have possessed the privilege of wearing a sword after the Revolution. Further, the telling cannot have taken place before 1786, since before that date there were no catacombs in Paris. The telling, therefore, must have taken place in 1787 or 1788. Since the murder took place 50 years previous to the telling, it would have occurred in 1737 or 1738. Of course, Montresor's "long sword," or rapier, had become somewhat outof-date by the beginning of the eighteenth century, having been replaced by the "short sword," or colichemarde, which then became the aristocratic weapon of choice. On the other hand, his wearing of the heavy knee-length coat called the roquelaire is upto-date, since it was at the height of fashion in the 1730s and 1740s.

The keys to the revenge plot and its motivation in "The Cask" are class conflict and the aristocratic social codes called the point d'honneur and the duella a la mazza. In the stratified society of the ancien régime in France, honor coincided with social status, as did justice and the mode of punishment. The code of behavior called "the point of honor" was exclusively a possession of the aristocratic class, whose men held the honorific privilege of wearing a sword with everyday dress. An offense against one's honor called for justice and punishment in a "duel to the death." The honor of an aristocrat could not be satisfied in the performance of a duel, however, unless the impugner was a social equal. If a commoner was the offender, the aristocrat either ignored the matter or hired thugs to beat him up. Because Fortunato is of bourgeois origin, Montresor cannot challenge him to a duel with swords. But Montresor is full of aristocratic pride, as reflected in his thoughts of titles of nobility, genealogy, escutcheons, coats of arms, quarterings, the bones of ancestors, fiefs, and inheritable property. The motto on his coat of arms is Nemo me impune lacessit ("No one insults me with impunity"). He cannot challenge the ignorant Fortunato; besides, with his purchased title he holds an official post in the government, is perhaps an intendant, and is thus a personification of the evils that had been foisted on the provincial aristocracy by the crown. Since Fortunato has power, Montresor resorts to murder.

What Poe does in "The Cask" is parody the social codes of the point of honor and the duel to the death by arranging the dialectic exchange between Montresor and Fortunato in a manner suggestive of a duel with swords . The dialogue is so arranged as to suggest the basic maneuvers of swordplay: the attacker lunges and thrusts; the defender parries and counterparries. But it is not a real duel he provides but simply a duel with words . An important aspect of dueling in the first half of the eighteenth century was the so-called chance meeting of French duelists, who were prohibited by royal law from dueling at all. By prearrangement they would agree to meet somewhere, as if by chance. When they met, they proceeded to walk into fields or woods, where they would duel. In "The Cask" Poe has Montresor meet Fortunato "as if by chance," when it is clear that Montresor had foreknowledge of Fortunato's attendance during the Mardi Gras celebration at a banquet, apparently at the local Freemasons' lodge. When Montresor leads the intoxicated Fortunato into the blind wall in the subterranean passages of the château and takes him prisoner, he already has mortar and trowel prepared for walling up his victim. Since Fortunato had given Montresor a Masonic sign and inquired if he were a Mason, an inquiry that elicited the response that he was nothing more than a real stone mason, while he laughingly displayed the real trowel he had brought with him, it is plain that Poe is also parodying French Freemasonry, whose motto was liberté, égalité, fraternité.

Poe's parody of Masonry extends the quest for the Amontillado to the Masonic legend of the Secret Vault and the search for the Lost Word. This legend links the Temple of Solomon with the Temple of Zerubabel. At the conclusion of his tale Montresor states his political attitude by telling his silent listener: "Against the new masonry [i.e., against the new Freemasonry] I re-erected the old rampart of bones" [i.e., the bones of his ancestors]. To him Fortunato's insults had injured not merely himself but also his ancestors. His last words, a quotation from the requiem mass, are directed not at Fortunato but at the bones of his ancestors. He says, "In pace requiescat!" or "May it [the bone pile] rest in peace!" It is to be noted that the Latin quotation is not in its normal linear order, the actual text being "Requiescat in pace!"

The theme of "The Cask" is perhaps a mixture of such sayings as "Revenge is sweet" (Southerne) and "What passes will be sweet" (Pushkin). Montresor's narrating voice displays an inner satisfaction and a pride in reliving in the present the performance of a masterful trick in the past. He is so pleased with himself that he proudly exhibits every detail—every act, word, and gesture—of his treatment of Fortunato. A positive attitude about the past is often observed in persons when they are old, and if he committed his perfect crime at about age 25, in the fictional present Montresor is 75 years old. Despite his age he appears healthy and vigorous and in no imminent danger of dying. There is no sign that he considers what he did to Fortunato as wrong. He is definitely not, as some readers have thought, penitently confessing his sin to a priest.

Montresor tells his story to the silent listener, whom he addresses simply as "you." He says, "You, who so well know the nature of my soul…." It is clear that the listener knows Montresor well because of a long-standing intimacy that began well after his youthful manhood. It is also clear that Montresor desires to enhance himself with the listener. The listener says nothing but remains all attention. The listener seems to be a woman, for clever women are good listeners to men's words. Is she Montresor's mistress?

What is the final effect of "The Cask" on the reader? The reader is most likely completely shocked. The reader is surprised to hear a gentleman recount so coldly and yet with such exuberance the circumstances of a murder that could have led him to the gallows. Even if the listener is shocked by his tale, Montresor surely expects sympathy with his moral aim. Readers must make their own judgments. At any rate "The Cask of Amontillado" is one of the finest examples of Poe's concentrated, closely woven, and rigorously controlled tales featuring superb dialogue. Such a construction and such a style is proof of Poe's full consciousness that he was "writing" and not simply "telling" his tale. It is not simply a Poe masterpiece but also one of the great short stories of world literature.

—Richard P. Benton