Malicious Vengeance: The Ghastly Acts of Murder
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Malicious Vengeance: The Ghastly Acts of Murder
Both Edgar Allen Poes short story, “The Cast of Amontillado,” and Louise Erdrichs essay, “Fleur,” have prominent themes about revenge, Poe focused on the act of Revenge, whereas Erdrich focused more on the events leading up to the horrific act.
Poes short story of revenge discusses how the main character, Montresor, abuses the victims trust to ultimately kill him. The story starts out with the victim, Fortunato, and the avenger, Montresor, joking and drinking merrily while walking through a
carnival together. Then, Montresor lies to Fortunato about having a rare wine, in a hidden location, that he would love to share with him. Fortunato, an avid wine connoisseur, is pleased to follow him due to his drunkenness, and also for the chance to taste such an exquisite wine.
By this time, Fortunato is so drunk and trusting of Montresor that he blindly follows Montresor deep into the back of a catacomb. During their journey Montresor gives Fortunato plenty of chances to turn around; Montresor tells his victim at one point “we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed.” (Poe 1316) Upon reaching the end of the cavern, Montresor does not explain himself, and does not gift his enemy with a bottle of wine, but instead sentences him to a slow and horrific death.
In his short story, Poe describes the act of revenge almost as a dark insanity that plagues the main character. Montresors madness is shown when he goes from friend to foe. He gives the impression that he is worried about Fortunatos health at first, but towards the end takes satisfaction in hearing the cries of his helpless victim. Montresor even told the listeners of his story “I ceased my labors and sat down upon the bones. When at last the clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel, and finished without interruption.” (Poe 1318)
Poe views the act of vengeance as a solemn, sinister, and deranged work of hatred. I hold this to be true because he portrays an image where the murderous avenger can look into the victims eyes while burying him alive behind a wall of brick and mortar. Montresor can also continuously hear “the furious vibrations of the chain.” (Poe 1318) After finally finishing the wall that separates the victim from life, Montresor sits in the catacomb awhile until he can no longer hear the dreadful screams of Fortunato.
Poe takes the approach that revenge is all about making the victim suffer ten-fold. His idea of revenge is apparent throughout the whole story. Poes main character does everything in his power to swindle Fortunato out of his life. After Montresor leads Fortunato to the back of the catacomb, Poe describes Montresors revenge as a slow and appalling act of murder through suffering.
Erdrichs essay is told by a second person narrator, about the life of a Native American named Fleur. Through the narrator, Pauline, Erdrich starts out her story by giving background information about Fleur. She focuses a great deal on how Pauline ended up meeting Fleur, and how she became to teller of Fleurs tale.
Fleur came to work for the same butcher shop that that Pauline was currently working at. Pauline described herself as the quite person that no one ever recognized, until Fleur came along. Fleur seemed to be the only person at the butcher shop that would even look at her, therefore Pauline came to care for Fleurs well-being. After witnessing such a shocking act done by her co-workers, towards her friend, she acts upon a perfect opportunity.
The essay starts its climax when Pauline secretly follows Fleur home after she had won a huge pot in poker, where Fleur angered many of her co-workers by winning. While Pauline was hiding from sight, she witnessed Fleur getting jumped and robbed of her jackpot by the people that they both worked with. The very next day, Pauline noticed that Fleur did not show up for work, but the co-workers that had jumped her did. She also noticed that they were hung-over and worthless, which may have helped to commit her unthinkable crime.
Soon after she arrived to work the weather turned bad, and there was a major storm that was about to touchdown. As soon as Pauline noticed this fact, she also noticed that all of her fellow co-workers took shelter in the large meat freezer towards the back of the business. In noticing that, Pauline casually walks over to the meat locker door and locks it. After Pauline did her deadly act of confining the perpetrators in the freezer to meet there doom, she casually walked away and acted like nothing happened. The co-workers were found frozen the next day.
Erdrich focuses on the events that lead up to Paulines decision of commenting her act of revenge. She does not go into great detail about what Pauline was thinking or feeling when she committed her crime of murder, but rather why she made her decision to do such an act. Erdrichs approach to Paulines revenge was very different then that of Poes.
In Erdrichs essay, Pauline takes vengeance against the group of victims that attacked her friend; the co-workers were avenged by a person that witnessed their horrible act of violence, not by the person that was initially wronged. Paulines revenge was without much emotion due to the fact that she was not personally attacked or humiliated by her victims. She was very calm throughout the whole essay, even when she committed the awful deed of murder.
Both sets of victims were confined within a small and enclosed space; they were more or less buried alive. They were both also under the influence of alcohol when their attacker took advantage of them. Even though they were both drunk and confined, each author goes about their importance towards revenge differently. The victims in Erdrichs essay willingly walked into there enclosure, whereas Montresor tricked his victim.
Paulines co-workers had no idea they were murdered. After finally noticing they were locked in the freezer, the moment to revenge had already been committed. It probably did not cross their