Answer:
Told in the first person by an Italian aristocrat, “The Cask of Amontillado” engages the reader by making him
or her a confidant to Montresor’s macabre tale of revenge. The victim is Fortunato, who, the narrator claims,
gave him a thousand injuries that he endured patiently, but when Fortunato dared insult him, he vowed
revenge. It must be a perfect revenge, one in which Fortunato will know fully what is happening to him and in
which Montresor will be forever undetected. To accomplish it, Montresor waits until carnival season, a time
of “supreme madness,” when Fortunato, already half-drunk and costumed as a jester, is particularly
vulnerable. Montresor then informs him that he has purchased a pipe of Amontillado wine but is not sure he
has gotten the genuine article. He should, he says, have consulted Fortunato, who prides himself on being an
expert on wine, adding that because Fortunato is engaged, he will go instead to Luchesi. Knowing his victim’s
vanity, Montresor baits him by saying that some fools argue that Luchesi’s taste is as fine as Fortunato’s. The
latter is hooked, and Montresor conducts him to his empty palazzo and leads him down into the family
catacombs, all the while plying him with drink. Through underground corridors with piles of skeletons
alternating with wine casks, Montresor leads Fortunato, whose jester’s bells jingle grotesquely in the funereal
atmosphere. In the deepest crypt there is a small recess, and there Montresor chains Fortunato to a pair of iron
staples and then begins to lay a wall of stone and mortar, with which he buries his enemy alive. While he does
so, he relishes the mental torment of his victim, whom he then leaves alone in the dark, waiting in terror for
his death.
Explanation:
