The answer to your question is A.
Not Waving but Drowning Theme of Death. You'd think that there couldn't be a clearer distinction than the one between life and death, but "Not Waving but Drowning" goes out of its way to muddy the water, so to speak. The focus, after all, is a talking corpse who just won't shut up even though the living can't hear him.
B. Fortunato hopes Montresor is playing a joke on him.
