History Literature / TheCaskOfAmontillado

* KarmaHoudini: Montresor gets clean away with murdering Fortunato and lives a good fifty years. [[DeathByAdaptation Some adaptations remedy this.]] {{Invoked}} by Mortresor himself in the narration, stating that being this is a ''requirement'' for successful revenge.

* GratuitousLatin: ''Nemo Me Impune Lacessit'' (Latin for "No one injures me with impunity.") is Monstresor's family motto, and another clue that Fortunato blissfully ignores that he is in trouble. (It also happens to be the national motto of UsefulNotes/Scotland.)

* GratuitousLatin: 'Nemo Me Impune Lacessit' (Latin for "No one injures me with impunity.") is Monstresor's family motto, and another clue that Fortunato blissfully ignores that he is in trouble. (It also happens to be the national motto of UsefulNotes/Scotland.)

* GratuitousLatin: 'Nemo Me Impune Lacessit' (Latin for "No one injures me with impunity.") is Monstresor's family motto, and another clue that Fortunato blissfully ignores that he is in trouble. (It also happens to be the national motto of UsefulNotes/Scotland.

In the last few sentences, Montresor reveals that 50 years have passed, and [[TheBadGuyWins no one has discovered Fortunato's fate.]]

* AlcoholInducedIdiocy: Fortunato suspects nothing of Montresor largely because he is drunk.

* BuriedAlive: Fortunato is walled up alive in a catacomb.
* ButForMeItWasTuesday: Fortunato doesn’t seem to remember what he even did to incur Montresor’s wrath. Interestingly, the trope’s use here is not to highlight Fortunato’s callousness or carelessness, but to emphasize that Montresor [[DisproportionateRetribution has been making a big deal out of nothing this whole time]].
* TheCakeIsALie: Clearly there is no pipe of Amontillado; Montresor is lying to lure him there.

* DefiantToTheEnd: It is subtle, but Fortunato manages to pull this on Montresor as his last act. After Montresor mocks his cry of "For the love of God, Montresor!", Fortunato notably falls completely silent. The moment is essentially Fortunato realizing that dooming him to a slow death is only his murderer's secondary objective; what Montresor actually wants is the satisfaction of hearing him begging and pleading for his life until the end [[EvilGloating while he gloats at and humiliates him]]. And correctly enough, Montresor's narration betrays the fact that he is indeed greatly annoyed and even a bit psyched out by Fortunato's sudden silence, so much so that he tries calling out his name twice, only to be further frustrated when no reply is forthcoming.
* DesignatedHero[=/=]DesignatedVillain: Intentionally invoked. The designations are made by a very UnreliableNarrator. Montresor repeatedly muses on Fortunato's OffscreenVillainy, but never gets into the specifics of what he actually did, and the guy appears to be harmlessly affable (but then so does Montresor if you don't have access to his thoughts). Meanwhile our narrator, who goes out of his way to assure the reader he is MostDefinitelyNotAVillain, is the one very carefully planning murder. Not even a quick and clean death either, but a pretty nasty AndIMustScream scenario.