The Cask of AmontiladoEssay Preview: The Cask of AmontiladoReport this essay“The Cask of Amontillado”My name is Monsignor Giovanni Thomasino. I have been Montressors Priest, friend and confidant since the time he came of age. I would describe him a wealthy bachelor and quite “skilled in Italian Vintages.” (161) He has always been a reserved, non-violent, patient person with an eye for details, which is why his confession came as such a surprise and utter shock to me.
In 1846, Montressor fell ill with the sweating sickness. He, as with the others afflicted with this illness would certainly perish. Montressor knew this and perhaps that is why he confided in me, to clear his conscience. A death bed confession perhaps. He began by uttering these words “[t]he thousand injuries of Fortunato I had born as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.” (161) He went on to say “I must not only punish but punish with impunity.” (161) I was bewildered by these statements as it was not in Montressors character to be vengeful or violent. He continued to inform me of the vengeance he instilled on Fortunato back in the year 1796, fifty years earlier.
Knowing Fortunato “had a weak pointpriding himself upon his connoisseurship in wine” (161) Montressor took full advantage of this fact. He lured him to his vaults under the guise of having a “pipe of what passed for Amontillado” (161) and wanted him to authenticate it as he had his doubts; however, “fearful of losing a bargain” (161) he bought it anyway.
Haney 2According to Montressor, Fortunato was more than happy to oblige and could barely contain his excitement at the thought of tasting such a rare vintage or perhaps it was just his inflated ego, either way he eagerly followed. Montressor contends “[w]e passed through a range of low arches, descended, passed on and descending again, arrived at a crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame.” (164)
Montressor confessed, Fortunato did not suspect anything, nor did he want us to retreat, not even after he saw “the walls lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead.” (164) Montressor then claims after Fortunato entered the deepest recess in the granite room, he wrapped a chain around his waist and padlocked it. Fortunato “was too much astounded to resist.” (164) muttered Montressor. He then began to build a wall at the opening of the granite room with Fortunato securely chained and padlocked inside. His tone and jest suggested to me that he was satisfied that he got his revenge and nobody knew it was by his hand that Fortunato had disappeared and had not been seen nor heard from again. I was in shock and astonished by his words as I did not believe he, the man I have known for years could perform such a horrific unspeakable act.
I immediately read the notes and the photos.
Bread in his mouth. All I remember is this:
“There, I am.”
Goddamn. I didn’t know. *Gumbsen*
You know what I was looking forward to most? That’s all you did, at least.
I’ve been reading so much about furs lately about their terrible taste.
But what I didn’t think of was what my neighbors, neighbors who had worked and lived on the west side, actually experienced about furs, especially the white ones with their furs, and about their neighbors who had been left behind. They never knew I was here for this but I guess they knew I was there for a cause, or at least a reason.
As I drove to work at the plant, I was sitting in the shade of a tree beside a house at the back, in the thick of day’s rains, talking to my wife, but nothing happened, so I just walked past the neighbor who was just in the shade of the tree and saw what just happened. I kept talking to him through the trees, and a neighbor came to me.
“Don’t worry, my friend, I’m alright here,” he just said. “I didn’t ask my father how it was. I just asked my grandmother.
“Don’t ask me why I went to this place. It’s for our grandchildrens’ sake,” he replied, and I understood how he did that when you’re talking to a very small group of your neighbors, and when you’re talking to a very small group of my friends—and this isn’t what I was doing or what this is about—you’re all kind of just saying, Oh, it was good. He’s right, it was good. What they’re thinking is it was good, because you’re all kind of saying, “O.k., we know your sister’s alive. That means it’s a good place to hang out.” And of course it’s good. The neighbor is saying it’s fine. My grandmother was fine too. The next day, she came to me in the midst of the water, and says, “I wanted to go down to the plant, but you said for a moment, ‘Oh, this place’s going to be bad’,” and I told her that for a moment her brother and I were going to have it wrong and it’s going to make things worse. So we called her, and I came down there and it looked like the worst I’d ever seen when a lot of this stuff is poured up in every small river that flow into it. It smelled like tar. But it was just tar, or tar, and it smelled like this. When it ran from tree to tree like this, it was like a good old fashioned wind. And I didn’t think it’d get better or better without it. I think this is just what we did. We made the same mistake we did when our grandmother came down here. I was really angry when my grandmother went down there, and there were tears in my eyes afterward.”
“There was no need in the first place to have a good talk with anyone, or anything at all,” my