bThe Cask of Amontillado

The tale is focused on two main characters named Montresor and Fortunato. In the beginning, these peculiar men meet in a jovial atmosphere during carnival season and

later retreat to the dank and eerie vaults of the catacombs. Poe creates a creepy and suspenseful mood the deeper Fortunato and Montresor venture into the vaults. The human skeletons and damp, potent niter along the dreary walls resonate a gloomy effect. "The niter...see it increases. It hangs like moss upon the vaults." (Poe 71). This visualization exhibits a serious mood that Poe wants the reader to perceive.

carnival: drugs and alcohol: The only literal drug we see in “The Cask of Amontillado” is wine. But there are many other drugs circulating between the lines. “Drugs,” in this story, can be anything the characters want badly enough to do awful or foolish things for. The story’s author, Edgar Allan Poe, struggled with drugs and alcohol. His struggle is carefully woven into this complicated narrative, which can be read as a gruesome allegory for addiction.

walkway: cellar: The contrast between freedom and confinement is extreme in “The Cask of Amontillado.” For one character to be free, another must die. Most of the story takes place in a vast and incredibly foul smelling catacomb, or underground graveyard. Dead bodies (or at least bones) abound. Freedom becomes less and less of a possibility as the characters move into smaller and smaller crypts, each one more disgusting than the last. Such confinement makes both the readers and the characters appreciate the deliciousness of fresh air. Hopefully, it makes us, the readers, think more deeply about what makes us feel trapped, and what makes us feel free.

gchain of retribution, enacted below ground in a mass grave. Behind all this revenge and death, the story is about trust. Without trust there can be no