Review written by Mª José Pérez Mezquita Beatriz Becerra Vera Elisa Villalón Castaño Emilio López López
Read by Elisa Villalón Castaño (group ING6L12A)
Darkness, revenge, punishment, cruelty and a thrilling twisted sense of humour come together in this classic horror story.
Edgar Allan Poe sets its plot during the carnival season in a crowded nameless Italian city. Like in many other Poe's tales the main character's intentions are revealed at the very beginning of the story. Montresor, the narrator, vows revenge upon Fortunato, who had previously insulted and offended him by unexplained reasons. He also states that this revenge has to take place without placing himself at risk. One night Montresor comes across Fortunato and appealing to his ego (as he prides himself on being a considerable connoisseur in wine), attracts him to his vaults in order to verify the authenticity of a pipe of Amontillado he had recently acquired. This premise is just an excuse to fulfil his inner, long-before, and planned-to-the-detail revenge.
Poe leads the readers into the damp and claustrophobic corridors of Montresor's subterranean vaults, accompanying the characters between casks of wine and skeletons of the catacombs, to a surprising ending.
One of the keys of the story is that Montresor does not reveal why he wants to take revenge on Fortunato. This fact offers readers the liberty of choosing whether the punishment inflicted to Fortunato is adequate to the affront or not, or if Montresor is just an insane, despicable and cruel person. The text is also full of ironic puns: Fortunato is not so fortunate after all, and Montresor reminds us of a monster.
The Cask of Amontillado, despite being written in 1846, is an appealing horror story that conserves all its validity, force and freshness. Its sinister atmosphere, irony, dark sense of humour, dialogued duel and, what is more important, feelings of sympathy for the villain are clearly present in TV series and movies like Dexter or Hannibal. Poe uses a very visual narrative technique: the flashback, as he is confessing what he did 50 years before.
In many aspects Poe himself led a difficult life and this fact probably had a great influence in his horror stories. Hardly could he imagine that his tales written in the 19th century would be republished many times and even adapted to the screen.
So... do you fancy being scared with The Cask of Amontillado?
