"'Nemo me impune lacessit.'
'Good!' he said" (Bohner and Grant 937).
"The Cask of Amontillado" written by Edgar Allan Poe is full of incredible elements that astonish a lot of the readers. One of the ways he does that is by playing with the readers' mind, which he also does in so many different ways. However, one part that made me feel the awesomeness was when Fortunato says "Good" when Montresor tells him their family motto. This short story starts with Montresor's vow of revenging on his friend who had given Montresor "thousand injuries" (Bohner and Grant 935). Hence, the image of Fortunato being a "bad" guy, along with the image of Montresor as a kind of a heroic figure-like Hamlet-was implanted in me. As the story moves on, Montresor's statement gets less and less authoritative as if he is a crazy person. This part of the story especially emphasizes the fact: it completely changes our view of both men. If Fortunato did something wrong, it wouldn't have been severe. Maybe it was for Montresor, but it may have been solved if he just told him. Fortunato seem to have no clue that he have offended his friend because he has no hesitation or awkwardness in saying that Montresor's family motto, which simply says that he would get back on someone who offends him, is good. He doesn't suspect anything nor decide to go back up. Fortunato's sense of innocence is brought and the reader is somewhat baffled. Montresor does not seem to have a good enough reason to convey vengeance on his friend. This takes away the whole conflict of "should I" or "should I not" appearing in Hamlet as Hamlet suffers through anxiety of if it is really okay for him to kill his uncle. Montresor, at least in the story, does not appear to have been through such thinking. Since he is lacking such "human" characteristic, he is crazy, at least more than Hamlet would be. Also, in Hamlet, we see Claudius confessing to himself that he have killed the king. In "The Cask of Amontillado," we could only see Montresor's feelings and Montresor's action. Because his actions are not valid anymore, this story as a whole is corrupted: we don't know to what extent the story is true (in the setting of the story). Why would Poe write in such way? I wonder if this is some kind of way in going against the popular novels and short stories.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
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1 comment:
I enjoy your ability to bring in Hamlet into this discussion of Poe. No one else did that! -LN
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