Line #22 Literature/TheCaskOfAmontillado


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3	%% The titles of short stories are formatted using double quotes, so please refrain from trying to italicize them
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5	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_cask_of_amontillado_by_raineing_d60k4qr.jpg]]
6	[[caption-width-right:350:''[[IronicEcho Yes, for the love of God...]]''[[note]]We are aware the wine in this picture is the wrong color for an amontillado sherry. [[SymbolicBlood Still the right color for the story, though]]...[[/note]]]]
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8	"The Cask of Amontillado" is one of Creator/EdgarAllanPoe's best-known {{short stor\|y}}ies, first published in the November 1846 issue of ''Godey's Lady Book'', a popular magazine for women at the time. It tells of [[MurdererPOV a gruesome murder from the killer's perspective,]] [[AuthorAppeal a situation Poe wrote several stories about]].
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10	The story's narrator, Montresor, tells the story of the day that he took his revenge on his friend Fortunato. [[OffscreenVillainy Angry over numerous injuries and some unspecified insult,]] he plots to murder Fortunato during Carnival, when the man is drunk, dizzy, and wearing a jester's motley.
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12	[[TheCakeIsALie Montresor lures Fortunato by telling him he has obtained a pipe of Amontillado sherry]], and is inviting [[TheGhost a fellow wine aficionado, Luchesi,]] for a private tasting. Not one to be made better of, Fortunato goes with Montresor to the wine cellars of the latter's house, where they wander in the catacombs. [[AlcoholInducedIdiocy Montresor keeps giving Fortunato drinks to keep him drunk,]] finally arriving at a niche, where Montresor tells his friend that the Amontillado is within. Fortunato enters drunk and unsuspecting, allowing Montresor to chain him to the wall.
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14	[[BuriedAlive Montresor then proceeds to wall up the niche, entombing his friend alive.]] Fortunato sobers up faster than anticipated, though, and pleads with Montresor. Montresor ignores him and continues, eventually walling him in completely.
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16	In the last few sentences, Montresor reveals that 50 years have passed, and [[TheBadGuyWins no one has discovered Fortunato's remains.]]
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18	Aspects of "The Cask of Amontillado" were used in the adaptation of "Literature/TheBlackCat" in ''Film/TalesOfTerror''.
19	----
20	!!"The Tropes of Amontillado":
21	* TheAlcoholic: Fortunato. He has an affinity for wine and a love of drinking that ends up being his doom.
22	* AlcoholInducedIdiocy: Fortunato suspects nothing of Montresor, largely because he is drunk.
23	* AmbiguousSituation: One of the most discussed aspects of the story is the end when Fortunato gives Montresor no final response before he is walled up completely. Is he too terrified? Or is he refusing to give Montresor any final satisfaction over his death? Or is he already dead? Even Montresor himself doesn't seem to know.
24	* AntiAlcoholAesop: Fortunato is already drunk at Carnival before he is lured to his doom by the prospect of taste-testing a cask of valuable wine. As he and Montresor walk deeper into the catacombs (used doubly as a wine-cellar), Fortunato is given more and more to drink, slowing his reactions to the revenge awaiting him.
25	* AristocratsAreEvil: Montresor is the scion of an ancient noble family.
26	* AssholeVictim: At least this is what Montresor claims Fortunato is. We get no info on any supposed insults and Montresor is not exactly the most reliable narrator. Though if the narration of the events being told is more accurate than the imagined slight, Fortunato is at the very least a rather obnoxious drunkard and isn't above mocking Montresor for not being a Freemason.
27	* AuthorAppeal: Being BuriedAlive is the plot of one of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Premature_Burial Poe's most famous stories]].
28	* TheBadGuyWins: It's hard to imagine what kind of offence Fortunato might have committed that would justify Montresor's [[DisproportionateRetribution horrific revenge]], so Montresor is most likely a VillainProtagonist. And he not only kills Fortunato, [[KarmaHoudini he gets away scot free]].
29	* BewareTheNiceOnes: Montresor claims that he patiently bore a "thousand injuries" from Fortunato until Fortunato finally went too far. Of course Montresor may not be the most reliable narrator.
30	* BuriedAlive: The narrator chains Fortunato to a niche inside a catacomb and then bricks up the opening, leaving him to die.
31	* ButForMeItWasTuesday: Fortunato doesn’t seem to realize Montresor is carrying a grudge over something he's done. Interestingly, the trope’s use here is not to highlight Fortunato’s callousness, but to emphasize that Montresor [[DisproportionateRetribution is furious over something most people would overlook or forgive]].
32	* TheCakeIsALie: The 'pipe of Amontillado' is just Montresor's excuse to bring Fortunato into the catacombs.
33	* DeadpanSnarker: Montresor has a very dry, cruel wit. When Fortunato experiences a coughing fit:
34	-->'''Montresor''': My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes.
35	* 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 unnerved 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.
36	* DesignatedHero[=/=]DesignatedVillain: Intentionally invoked. The designations are made by an 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 who has plotted out a murder to the smallest detail. Not even a quick and clean death either, but a pretty nasty AndIMustScream scenario.
37	* DisproportionateRetribution: Fortunato gets buried alive by the narrator for some unknown insult of which he seems not even aware. Whatever it was, it's unlikely it warranted this response.
38	* DownerEnding: Montresor gets away with murdering Fortunato scot-free.
39	* EvilGloating: A narration by a VillainProtagonist fifty years after the fact could hardly be anything less than a good-old-fashioned villainous gloat session. Notably though, in the story, Fortunato actually comes to the realization that this is actually what Montresor wants. Montresor doesn't want to murder Fortunato as much as he wants the psychological satisfaction of mocking his anguished cries as it dawns on him that he was easily tricked into dying a slow death. In a final act of defiance, Fortunato refuses to play along, and replaces his panic with cold silence. This silence catches Montresor off-balance, and it's evident from narration that he was very confused and annoyed at being robbed of the chance to gloat properly. He even begins to feel "sick at heart" about what he is doing, because the sudden silence gives him no recourse but to actually consider the gravity of the act he is about to carry out. Even those fifty years later, there are still clear hints of Montresor being somewhat bitter about the fact Fortunato managed to outwit him at the end by taking all the fun out of his revenge.
40	* EvilIsPetty: Montresor murders Fortunato in an extremely cruel manner for merely offending him (and quite possibly not even intentionally at that).
41	* FauxAffablyEvil: Montresor's behavior zig-zags between this trope and [[AffablyEvil more genuine affability,]] though the former seems to win out. While Montresor's narration maintains a polite enough tone throughout, calling Fortunato "his poor friend" at several points, his jovial attitude towards Fortunato in-story -- amicably joking with his friend and expressing numerous concerns about his health -- is all an act to lure Fortunato further into the crypt.
42	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
43	** This exchange. [[AlcoholInducedIdiocy Fortunato fails to realize there's something going on because he's so drunk.]]
44	--->'''Fortunato''': I drink...to the buried that repose around us.\
45	'''Montresor''': ''And I to your long life.''
46	** Montresor does quite a bit of gloating while Fortunato is oblivious. Another exchange, in much the same way:
47	--->'''Fortunato:''' I shall not die of a cough!\
48	'''Montresor:''' ''True.''
49	** There's also Montresor's coat of arms with the motto (in Latin) "No man attacks me with impunity". And not long after that, Montresor responds to Fortunato's claim he is not a mason (as in a Freemason) by suddenly producing a trowel from his coat, the very item he intends to use to wall Fortunato up in the crypt and something most people would ''not'' just be carrying around unless they intended to use it in some way. Really, the guy was dropping so many hints of what was to come that Fortunato arguably falls into TooDumbToLive territory even with how drunk he was.
50	* TheGhost: Luchesi, a fellow wine aficionado and acquaintance to both Montresor and Fortunato. Montresor lures Fortunato deeper into the catacombs by frequently claiming he'll get Luchesi to do the tasting, [[{{Hypocrite}} which only makes the latter want the Amontillado more because he thinks Luchesi is a drunk and won't be able to savor it.]]
51	** Lady Fortunato, whom Fortunato mentions briefly in his last-ditch attempt to appeal to Montresor's sympathy, also qualifies.
52	* 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}}.)
53	* GreenEyedMonster: One of the motives for the murder considered by scholars is Montresor's envy of Fortunato's wealth and popularity. His [[TheSociopath sociopathy]] is shown clearly when he implies that he blames Fortunato for his fall from grace and wealth rather than himself.
54	--> '''Montresor:''' You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was.
55	* {{Hypocrite}}: It's pretty ballsy for Fortunato to call Luchesi a drunk who doesn't appreciate fine wine when he himself is hammered on the stuff.
56	* IgnoredEpiphany: Montresor feels sick at heart after hearing Fortunato's bells jingle for the last time, but dismisses it as being caused by the dampness of the catacombs and finishes walling Fortunato up before replacing the bones at it.
57	* IronicName: "Fortunato" (Italian for "Fortunate") is a very ironic name for the guy who gets buried alive.
58	* IWasJustJoking: Inverted. Fortunato tries to invoke this on Montresor -- "Ha! ha! ha! -- he! he! he! -- a very good joke, indeed -- an excellent jest. We will have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo -- he! he! he! -- over our wine -- he! he! he!" -- in one of his last-ditch attempts at saving his life, but it fails.
59	* KarmaHoudini: Montresor gets clean away with murdering Fortunato and lives a good fifty years. [[DeathByAdaptation Some adaptations remedy this.]] {{Invoked}} by Montresor himself in the narration, stating that being this is a ''requirement'' for successful revenge.
60	-->''"A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes the redresser."''
61	* KnowNothingKnowItAll: Fortunato repeatedly dismisses Luchesi as an inferior connoisseur of wine who "cannot tell Amontillado from sherry" when in fact Amontillado ''is'' a type of sherry, which one would assume a self-proclaimed connoisseur like Fortunato (even while drunk) would know. [[note]]Then again, what he ''might'' mean is that Luchesi cannot tell Amontillado from "normal" sherry (presumably the more common fino), the same way one might not be able to tell prosecco from champagne, despite the fact that both are sparkling white wines.[[/note]] Additionally, the mere focus of the story is on Fortunato being willing to get drunk off his ass and chug expensive wine anyway, which is definitely not the actions of a great connoisseur.
62	* LetMeTellYouAStory: Montresor is telling the story of Fortunato's murder fifty years after the fact to someone "who so well know[s] the nature of [his] soul". Just who this person is has been left ambiguous.
63	* LuredIntoATrap: Montresor does this to Fortunato as he leads the man to his death in the vault.
64	* MirthlessLaughter: Fortunato towards the end as cited above. He acts as though he's praising Montresor for his supposed prank, but it's obvious that he's now absolutely terrified at his impending fate.
65	* MurderIsTheBestSolution: Your buddy (maybe) insult you? Wall him up in a tomb and leave him to die. That's the ticket.
66	* {{Narcissist}}: Hinted to be the case with Montresor. Not only does he possess a great deal of aristocratic pride, but he feels validated in killing a man over a perceived and possibly even entirely imagined insult.
67	* NoodleIncident: Just what ''did'' Fortunato do that made Montresor feel it was necessary to take such a revenge? He never says. While the full nature of the "insult" may never be known, Poe scholars have narrowed it down to being related to class conflict. Montresor is the scion of an ancient noble family, while Fortunato appears to be "new money." Arrogant, vulgar, and ignorant of the manners of high society, Fortunato inadvertently slighted Montresor's family honor in such a way that could only be redressed through violent retribution. Some have even theorized that Fortunato made his money by fleecing Montresor or one of his fellow ancient noblemen.
68	* OffscreenVillainy: Montresor [[UnreliableNarrator claims]] that Fortunato has been generally horrible to him and the last straw was some unspecified insult. Onscreen, the worst he does is be a pretentious drunk and insult a couple people while wasted.
69	** Some adaptations show a bit of what Fortunato did, for instance a 1953 radio play has him insult Montresor's distinguished swordsman of an ancestor and steal his girlfriend.
70	* OhCrap: It takes Fortunato a good long moment to sober up and realize that Montresor isn't just fooling around with him. The realization hits him hard just before the last brick is mortared into place.
71	-->'''Fortunato:''' ''For the love of God, Montresor!''
72	* PretentiousLatinMotto: "Nemo me impune lacessit" as stated by Montresor, which translates out to "No one insults me with impunity". He made that clear when he buried a very intoxicated Fortunato alive.
73	* ReversePsychology: Montresor has made sure his servants leave his mansion for the night by explicitly telling them ''not'' to stir from the house in his absence, and he persuades Fortunato to keep going deeper into the cellars by telling him that he will just ask Luchesi instead, a man Fortunato feels is an inferior connoisseur of wines.
74	* RetiredMonster: Montresor is relating the story to someone fifty years after the fact, meaning he ''has'' to be an old man by this point.
75	* SanitySlippage: It is almost universally agreed by readers and scholars that Montresor is insane in some capacity. [[LeftHanging Exactly how insane and how justified he is in his actions is left to the reader.]]
76	* SchmuckBait: Montresor uses his offer of a pipe (a large barrel of about 126 gallons) of Amontillado, a very expensive sherry, to lure Fortunato to his doom.
77	* SealedRoomInTheMiddleOfNowhere: Montresor lures Fortunato into the deepest point of his family catacombs, chains him to a wall, then bricks up the tunnel behind him, guaranteeing Fortunato will die a slow and agonizing death with little hope of escape or rescue.
78	* SecretHandshake: Montresor is asked by Fortunato to give the Freemason's handshake, but cannot, since he is not a part of the secret society.
79	* TheSociopath: Montresor, probably. It takes a special kind of screwed-up to kill someone who seems to consider you a friend over an insult. (It's worth noting that we don't even find out what said insult ''was''.) And it wasn't an impulsive, spur-of-the-moment thing done in a burst of rage, either -- this is something that took a ''lot'' of preparation and planning, meaning Montresor thought this over for a good long time, and still went through with it. The killing itself is a truly horrific way to die, and anything but quick and painless. And he does this all with only a hint of remorse.
80	* SuddenlySober: The alcohol wears off ''fast'' once Fortunato realizes his dire situation and he begins screaming and struggling. Even Montresor is surprised by it.
81	* TooDumbToLive: If Fortunato weren't so damn inebriated, he'd have caught on that something was up soon enough to probably save his skin. In fact, his implied [[AlcoholInducedIdiocy perpetual drunkeness]] might be what put him in Montresor's bad graces in the first place.
82	* UnreliableNarrator: Montresor claims that the insults he's borne from Fortunato were grave enough to justify chaining him behind a wall to die slowly of dehydration or suffocation. He also thinks condemning someone to die in such a horrifying way is an appropriate response to being ''insulted''. Worse, it's possible the insult in question was unintentional, or even entirely in Montresor's head.
83	* TheUnreveal: Exactly what the insult that filled Montresor with murderous rage towards Fortunato was, is never specified.
84	* VillainProtagonist: Montresor intentionally leads his friend to a horrific, slow, terrifying end, all because said friend insulted him (note that the friend doesn't even seem aware that he offended Montresor at all). Our hero, ladies and gentlemen!
85	* VisualPun: Fortunato asks if Montresor is a Mason (of the Freemasons). Montresor doesn't understand, but says he is. Fortunato asks for proof. Montresor shows him his trowel.
86	* WineIsClassy: Especially Amontillado, which is a complicated sherry that requires dual oxidation to give it a complex, savory flavor.
87	* WithFriendsLikeThese: Some friend Montresor turned out to be. Montresor also claims that Fortunato was also this, though it seems unlikely that whatever he did justified ''being buried alive''.
88	----
89	->''[[Music/{{Chumbawamba}} You bricked me up inside the cellar wall\
90	Stuck in here with nothing at all\
91	But my jester hat from the carnivale\

Context Literature / TheCaskOfAmontillado