Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) - American poet and writer, an outstanding master of mystical and detective story, as well as works in the genre of horror. Considered a representative of American romanticism.
The story "Keg of Amontillado" was written in 1846, then it was published on its pages by the popular American women's magazine Godey's Lady's Book, in which, by the way, many novels by Poe were released.
By the nature of the construction, this story is the confession of the killer, the story of one terrible revenge, which the main character prepared for his offender.
In the article we gave a brief summary, description and analysis of the "Barrel of Amontillado", as well as the history of its writing.
About the story
The entire text is written in the first person, in fact, it is a monologue-confession of a certain Montresor, a poor nobleman who was humiliated and pestered by Fortunato's ridicule. He, on the contrary, was notable and was a representative of a wealthy noble family. However, the reader is not given the opportunity to find out exactly what kind of humiliation Montresor got from Fortunato - nothing is said about this in the text. Thus, we can ascribe the main character and suspiciousness. However, from this the general tone of the narrative becomes even more gloomy.
One can only guess where and when the described event occurs. It is very possible that this is an unnamed city in Italy of the XYIII century. At least the Spanish fortified wine Amontillado began to produce and sell exactly then.
Writing history
There is a legend according to which Edgar Allan Poe wrote a story, impressed by the story that he heard in 1827 in one of the fortresses of the American state of Massachusetts. The duel that occurred on Christmas Day 1817 between two lieutenants Drain and Messi, then ended in the death of the latter. The soldiers who wanted to avenge his death to Drain were lured, having previously drunk him in the dungeon, chained to the wall and walled up.
However, this is only one of several versions. There is more prosaic evidence that Poe borrowed a story from a novel by the French realist writer Honore de Balzac, published in 1843.
As for the motto of the clan Montresor pronounces: "Nemo me impune lacessit!" (translated from Latin: “No one will offend me with impunity!”), he was borrowed by the writer, most likely, from Fenimore Cooper's novel “The Last of the Mohicans”, which was published in 1826.
How the "Keg of Amontillado" was written
It is known that the story was the answer to Thomas Dunn English, an American writer, poet and politician. However, the beginning of the conflict was laid by Poe himself, who mocked English, a constant adversary, in his essays. In January 1846, there was even a fight, followed by notes in magazines and literary caricatures from both participants.
In the end, English wrote an essay entitled "1844, or The Power of the SF". We know that the plot included a story of revenge, but overall evoked a sensation as a very lengthy and confusing text. Following him, which became a kind of retaliation, Poe's story came out.
Readers were immediately struck by a series of references and correspondences in both texts. So, in the English story, secret societies were mentioned, which was later reflected in the response story of Edgar Allan Poe. In it, Fortunato, walking along an underground gallery, mentions his belonging to the Masonic lodge - and the English story also speaks of a secret society.
He talks about the sign - the falcon, which holds a snake in its claws. And in the story of Poe on the coat of arms of Montrezor, the foot tramples on a snake that stuck its teeth into its heel.
But Edgar Poe is parodying English: when Fortunato asked the protagonist if he was a Freemason, Montresor answered affirmatively and jokingly flung open his dominoes (we mean a fancy dress - a long cloak with sleeves and a hood), he shows the shovel that he was carrying with myself.
On the whole, the whole scene from the underground passage in Poe’s story, albeit with a stretch of the imagination, can be called copying the scene in the dungeon in English in 1844.
Next, we turn to the summary of "Barrel of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe.
Hero's Preface
The story, which is also called a short story due to its small size, begins with the words of the protagonist:
I humbled a thousand insults from Fortunato, but when he insulted me, I vowed revenge.
Montresor, who is closed by nature, does not announce his decision to anyone, even he does not make it clear to the offender that he was offended. However, he is going to take revenge on him, and carefully prepares his revenge. It seems to the main character that he foresaw all the little things that would interfere with his plan or give him away as a killer. For the credo for himself, he defined as follows:
I should not only punish, but also punish without any danger to myself. Resentment is not avenged if the avenger is punished; she is equally not avenged even when the avenger does not make sure that the offender knows who is taking revenge on him.
Therefore, he appoints his revenge at the time of the carnival, when many people walk around the city streets unidentified in masks.
The next step of the avenger was to make sure that no servants remained on his own estate - having learned from the words of the owner that he would return late, they simply fled, also attracted by carnival festivities.
In the dungeon
Montresor found Fortunato at dusk - he was pretty tipsy, he was wearing a Harlequin leotard and a cap with bells. Having managed to captivate him with the invention that he bought on occasion a whole keg of amontillado (about 500 liters), and knowing that Fortunato prides himself on his reputation as a wine connoisseur, Montresor leads the victim to his castle and offers him to go down to the dungeon where the precious amontillado is supposedly located . By the way, this wine was really very expensive at that time - Montresor knew how to lure Fortunato.
Every now and then mentioning a certain Lucrezi, who could help him assess the rare wine, and without end with false care worried about Fortunato's health, who coughs up, the main character brings that to a completely predictable impatience and desire to quickly try amontillado.
So they find themselves at the very end of the underground galleries. Fortunato, who along the way was additionally drunk with honey (a kind of honey alcoholic drink) as a welcoming host, without feeling any suspicions and not feeling the threat hanging over him, enters the niche Montresor pointed out to him. Everything is ready for the killer - he throws a pre-prepared chain with a lock on him and rivets him to the wall.
The final
Montresor then collects the stones and makes a wall of them, wanting to walled Fortunato in a niche. He first does not understand what is happening, then quickly sober up and begs him to be released. For a while he even thinks that it was a joke and laughs, wanting to hear the owner's reciprocal laugh. But Montresor only repeats his words. His words echo with an ominous echo. Finally, the last stone is laid on the wall. The imprisoned prisoner fell silent forever. The final words of the protagonist are as follows:
I made an effort and adjusted the last stone; I covered it with lime. I leaned against an old wall of bones against a new wall. Half a century passed, and not a single mortal touched them.
Montresor ends the story with the Latin dictum “In race requiescat!”, Which means “May he rest in peace!” Traditionally, this phrase in Catholicism in abbreviated form "RIP" is carved at burial sites, tombstones, as well as making a speech about the recently deceased.
Analysis
Although the focus of the story is murder, the story is not a detective story in its purest form, because the reader will not find an investigation here. Therefore, do not compare the "Barrel of Amontillado" with such stories by Edgar Allan Poe as "The Stolen Letter" or "Murder on Morgue Street".
At the same time, the motive for the murder can be called the most incomprehensible to the reader. There are practically no expositions in the story, except for a few words of the protagonist. Either Montresor really got it right from Fortunato, or not at all, and the suspicious hero invented everything. In any case, the reader will have to speculate on the degree of Montresor’s resentment. And this is a feature not only of the story, but also of the narrator.
About characters
According to many reviews on “The Keg of Amontillado,” the mention of “thousands of humiliations” by the main character already makes him a little like a madman, but prudence and prudence of his actions, however, reduce the likelihood of this version.
Fortunato’s character also didn’t seem convincing enough to subsequent criticism. Allegedly a connoisseur and connoisseur of expensive wines, while traveling through the stone galleries of Fortunato at a time, he drinks a whole bottle of De Grave, not the cheap French wine that the owner serves him. Needless to say, such an act does not do him honor. In addition, he should have understood that the intoxicated state is unlikely to allow him to reliably assess the authenticity of the amontillado, and for this he went down into the dungeon.
Thus, when analyzing the work "The Barrel of Amontillado", it should be emphasized that the reliability of the extract of both characters aroused great doubt among readers. However, we must not forget that the story is built in the form of confession, that is, written in the first person. Therefore, all the uncertainties can only be reduced to the peculiarities of the thinking and vision of the protagonist.
Recurring topics. Confession
Favorite for Poe are the topics that we will discuss in the description of "Barrel of Amontillado." They are involved in many other works of the writer.
So, for example, the story under discussion, built in the form of a confession of a murderer, repeats with this technique the work “Black Cat”, in which an alcoholic tells how he killed a cat and then his wife. And the same trick is in the story “The Accuser-Heart”, in which the monologue of the protagonist, as the reader can easily see, clearly shows his mental breakdown.
Buried alive
The theme of blocking the body in various variations is present in the two already mentioned stories. Poe also uses the theme of funeral alive, for example, in the story "Berenice" (though the scene in which the protagonist finds out that Berenice is still alive, seeing her body before the funeral, was later cut to the demands of readers shocked by the "excessive cruelty" of the work) .
In The Fall of the Asher House, Lady Madalein was lowered alive into the dungeon and laid there in a coffin. Finally, we find the same topic in the story "Premature Burial", written in 1844, that is, shortly before the writing of "Barrel of Amontillado."
Literary scholars have information that stories with Edgar Allan Poe alive buried in the work of Edgar Allan Poe appeared under the influence of the then-popular story of Anna Hill Carter, wife of the Governor of Virginia. Later, it was possible to find out that she suffered from narcolepsy, accompanied by attacks of sleep paralysis (in those years, these were diseases unknown to medicine). In 1804, she had another seizure, death was recorded, and she was buried in the family crypt. After some time, someone heard screams coming from the tomb. The coffin was opened and found buried alive. After this incident, Anna lived another 25 years. They talked a lot about this case, but considered it unreliable, since it was not officially recorded. Nevertheless, in 1834, the story that happened to Anna Hill Carter was published in the Washington Post, and thus became known to even wider circles.
Masked villain
The reader can find the theme of masquerade, carnival, and a generally terrible villain hidden under a clownish mask, in addition to The Barrel of Amontillado, in the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, Jump-Skok, or Eight Shackled Orangutans, William Wilson and The Mask of the Red Death.
In the first of these works, a dwarf jester, insulted by his lord-king, disguises a fierce revenge under the guise of a buffoonery, as a result of which the offender, along with his retinue, dies a painful death, and the jester safely disappears.
We have provided a brief summary, description, and analysis of the "Barrel of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe.