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Revenge
While many classic revenge tales focus on the futility of revenge, portraying it as unsatisfying and harmful to the person seeking it, “The Cask of Amontillado” comes to no such easy conclusion about the merits of revenge. Montresor appears remorseless and nonchalant about his actions, but it is also not clear that his project of revenge offers him the result he desires. At the beginning of the story, Montresor explains his ideal revenge. First, he says that revenge should not consume the avenger, and also the target should understand that his wrongs have been avenged. Montresor, telling this story fifty years after the events took place, can still remember every detail about Fortunato’s murder. The act of revenge may not have consumed him, but it has stuck with him, certainly in more detail than the insults Fortunato lay upon him, which Montresor never describes. He has also left Fortunato’s corpse in the middle of the Montresor family catacomb, symbolically entombing him within the family history. Furthermore, Fortunato does not appear to understand why Montresor has bricked him up in the tomb, and Montresor never explains. It thus appears that Montresor has not fulfilled his own qualifications for successful revenge.
However, even if Montresor has failed by certain metrics of revenge, he does not appear undone by his actions. He seems proud as he tells the story, delighting in his skillful manipulation of Fortunato’s weaknesses of alcohol and pride. He includes details designed to show his cleverness, such as when he brings out his trowel in response to Fortunato’s comment about Freemasonry. He concludes the story simply with the Latin for “may he rest in peace,” which comes off as pleased and smug. Despite the moment where he admits his heart “grew sick,” which may suggest that his feelings are more complicated than he lets on, Montresor outwardly expresses no regret. Furthermore, nothing indicates that the murder changes Montresor’s life significantly. The story thus demonstrates that for a man like Montresor, revenge is something almost mundane, a duty to his family honor. As is typical in Poe’s short stories, there is no true moral about revenge, only the thrill of exploring Montresor’s psyche.
The Irrationality of Pride
Both of the main characters in the story are prideful men, and this pride leads them to extreme, irrational behavior. Clearly, Montresor’s familial pride is both strong and fragile. The one explanation Montresor gives about Fortunato’s crime is that he insulted Montresor, and per the Montresor family motto, no insult goes unpunished. Nevertheless, because we do not have more details on Fortunato’s trespass, Montresor’s sinister behavior comes off as a violent overreaction to something that can be described as an insult. Fortunato’s pride is also on full display and spurs him on to his doom. Montresor plays on Fortunato’s pride to lure him into the vault by suggesting that Luchesi is equally skilled in wine identification. Montresor’s constant evocation of Fortunato’s poor health can also be read as playing on his pride because of how vehemently Fortunato downplays his cough. Thus, Fortunato ignores the strangeness of traveling so far into the vault and the clear ill effects the damp has on his health because his pride will not allow him to turn back. For both characters, pride overruns their reason, building tension in the story and driving the plot to its frightening conclusion.
The Psychology of a One-Sided Rivalry
In his narration, Montresor builds Fortunato up as a cruel rival, but Fortunato does not appear to harbor ill-will toward Montresor. The one-sided nature of Montresor’s intense hatred shows the power of the mind to distort relationships as he twists his upset into a full-blown rivalry. From Montresor’s initial description of Fortunato’s thousand injuries, we might expect Fortunato to be rude or at least backhanded in his behavior toward Montresor. Instead, Fortunato is warm, if perhaps a little too eager for free alcohol. From his questions about the Montresor family crest, and his expectation that Montresor will join him in making the Freemason signal, he doesn’t appear to know Montresor particularly well. Thus, his warm albeit slightly superficial friendliness is shocking in light of Montresor’s buried rage. Montresor’s language for his hatred of Fortunato is disturbing and vivid. He imagines Fortunato’s “immolation,” him burning, perhaps to death or burning eternally in hell. He calls Fortunato a “formidable foe” despite Fortunato not treating him as an adversary in their interactions. If there is a rivalry between Fortunato and Montresor, it appears it exists primarily in Montresor’s mind, a hatred he has nursed himself.
