THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO.
BY EDGAR A. POE.
“The illustration, to be sure, is not always in accordance with
our own understanding of the text; and this fact … is, perhaps,
the most reasonable objection which can be urged against
pictorial embellishment – for the unity of conception is
disturbed; but this disturbance takes place only in very slight
measure . . . and its disadvantages are far more than
counterbalanced by the pleasure … of comparing our
comprehension of the author’s ideas with that of the artist.”
-Edgar Allen Poe
THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length[1] I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled — but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk.
In the original text our not yet named narrator (Montresor) begins by expressing that this is a revenge tale. Seeking to punish Fortunato. A thousand injuries are an exaggeration, but this number is significant. A thousand- a milli, is also the number used when expressing many thanks in Italian. Grazie milli. Milli= Italian. This could also promote the speculation that this story likely takes place in Italy. He assures us that at the end of this tale he would be avenged, and switches into the second person. “You, who so well know the nature of my soul….” speaking directly to the reader, much like the opening illustration of the comic shows our narrator in old age beginning to present his tale of revenge.
With the Comic version accompanied in the graphics below we are given additional details to understand the story. We see that both the narrator and Fortunato are wealthy by the way they dress in the comics and the settings that the interact. The cocktail party is a visual example that the classic comics edition provides to show this element of class and wealth. Additionally, the comic contrasts with the original tale by giving the reader a visual of the source of the narrator’s vendetta. The image implies that the insult or insults appear to have been transpired at a social gathering where Fortunato holds a glass of wine. This is also an early example of foreshadowing that an illustration can provide in a way that written word sometime might now. On a more lighthearted note, the narrator pulls off an impeccable mustache in the comic edition.
Poe, Edgar A. Palais, Rudy. “The Cask of Amontillado.” Classics Illustrated, no. 84, June 1951 pp. 31 https://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/2015/11/poe-1951-pt-5.html
It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation. [2]
Our narrator makes it clear that his intentions are unknown to Fortunato. He’s putting on an act and playing nice. One would assume, that for our narrator to suddenly want to kill Fortunato that his contempt towards the man had been brewing for some time. Whatever mistreatment was experienced, it’s surely boiling to this point. The word now is italicized in this section and perhaps there’s more to that, but it could be signaling a shift in tone. Poe finishes this paragraph with “immolation” in other words saying “My smile was at the thought of his sacrifice.” It’s here where we can first read and feel the darkness of our narrator. He didn’t only want to punish Fortunato. He wanted the man to die. His smile at the thought of this presents an element of horror and one that we might expect to see from a serial killer.
He had a weak point — this Fortunato — although in other regards he was a man to be respected and even feared. He prided himself upon his connoisseurship in wine. Few Italians have the true virtuoso spirit. For the most part their enthusiasm is adopted to suit the time and opportunity, to practice imposture upon the British and Austrian millionaires. In painting and gemmary, Fortunato, like his countrymen, was a quack, but in the matter of old wines he was sincere. In this respect I did not differ from him materially; — I was skilful in the Italian vintages myself, and bought largely whenever I could.
Poe, Edgar A. Palais, Rudy. “The Cask of Amontillado.” Classics Illustrated, no. 84, June 1951 pp. 32 https://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/2015/11/poe-1951-pt-5.html
In the image above we see a few differences between Poe’s version and classic comics. Most clearly is that this is an added scene with Montresor purchasing the cask of amontillado wine from a seller at the port. And that it was here where the idea for how he would murder Fortunato would be formed. Something that we aren’t told in the original version. Additionally, the port being an added scene is of note. Why are the ships purple and not brown? The illustrators were likely trying to show significance to the ships themselves. Previously, in the image our narrator is holding a purple wine glass, but Fortunato is holding a purple one the shimmers. We aren’t told what color the wine or glasses are in the original tale, but it’s less necessary as we jump from scene to scene.
Here we can see that purple wine glass and the boat are symbolic. Purple is akin to power, luxury, and even royalty. From minor details like color we can make connections to other people, history, and literature. For example, when we think about historical figures in Italy and ancient Rome specifically, we can recall that purple was the color of the toga that Caesar would wear. Julius Caesar, who was assassinated by conspirators, out of the fear of his growing power and to prevent him from making himself a king. Fortunato could be our Caesar in this story- he’s a man well respected, with power, and feared. Our narrator could be Brutus, a conspirator, and a friend to Caesar (Fortunato) Without the colors and images added, connections like that would be unlikely.
The images also allow us to see the deviousness of Montresor. We know he is scheming in the original, but we don’t see when, or where exactly. The hand on the chin in the background of the above image and the meeting with the trader are all moments provided through illustrations. Additionally, if we look at Montresor’s clothing, he is wearing purple, red, and green. By tying in symbolism of those colors such as : power, passion blood, envy, class, royalty, we are shown that he is representing those feelings through his attire.
It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells. I was so pleased to see him that I thought I should never have done wringing his hand.
Here we have more descriptions of our unfortunate victim. We also are given clues as to the setting! One might presume Venice, as it’s the home of the oldest and most famous beginning in 1296. And though it’s never explicitly said, we can presume that Venice is the setting of this Tale.
Note the description of the meeting of Fortunato. Our narrator is ecstatic to see his foe, though he is described as a friend. The friendliness is excessive and so much so, that it’s unnerving.
Poe, Edgar A. Palais, Rudy. “The Cask of Amontillado.” Classics Illustrated, no. 84, June 1951 pp. 33 https://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/2015/11/poe-1951-pt-5.html
The illustration adds elements to this story as well. What are the images and expressions doing for the story , characters and the message it sends? It’s a clear difference between the original and the illustrated adaption. Poe’s tales all feel dark, and most take place during the night. The Cask of Amontillado is a tale that also takes place in the evening, but in the comic we are given a scene a the carnival in which the setting feels like it’s still daytime, or afternoon. The sky is orange, and green and many colors. When we later follow Montresor and Fortunato into the catacombs, it become apparent that the transition from the light to the dark is intentional and this can go back to the idea of doubling and split personality. Montresor was in the light, but not he is in the dark and truly evil.
This image speaks to a strong stronger familiarity between our characters. Despite being drunk, the fact that Fortunato calls Montresor, “old friend” speaks volumes and adds a layer to this story. It’s also incredibly ironic. It’s more than a plot to murder a man who offended him, Montresor is about to kill someone who at the very least saw their relationship as close. It’s not simply murder, it’s betrayal too and these depictions shouldn’t go without notice. Another aspect to observe is the use of unique creatures in the comic. The imps, the walking rooster, the man with the long mustache are all nods to Poe’s racist sentiments towards Black people during his lifetime. The Imps are shown to be devilish and one also gives us a shadow for a double, but the shadow has horns where the creature does not.
On page 44 of the comic edition, we are shown Montresor laying the last brick while entombing Fortunato alive. The theme of live burial takes center stage to finish our tale. Live burial is a common use of Poe’s gothic literature, we see it in Berenice when she’s not actually dead, but still buried because she was thought to be. We see it in the Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym as he is stuck in a crate, for a long period of time, and later when he is again nearly buried alive on the island when the tribe revolts against his crew. This is to say that in both of those stories, the narrator was not evil. In a Cask of Amontillado our narrator is most certainly an evil man, and the lack of remorse is what makes him most terrifying. The Illustrators highlight his turn to evil by including two small horns that are subtly apparent on Montresor’s forehead. An artistic addition to show his true character.
I said to him — “My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day. But I have received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts.”
“How?” said he. “Amontillado? A pipe? Impossible! And in the middle of the carnival!”
“I have my doubts,” I replied; “and I was silly enough to pay the full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter. You were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain.”
“Amontillado!”
“I have my doubts.”
“Amontillado!”
“And I must satisfy them.”
“Amontillado!”
“As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchresi. If any one has a critical turn it is he. He will tell me ——”
“Luchresi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry.”
“And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for your own.”
“Come, let us go.”
“Whither?”
“To your vaults.”
“My friend, no; I will not impose upon your good nature. I perceive you have an engagement. Luchresi ——”
“I have no engagement; — come.”
In Charles N Nevi’s article Irony and “The Cask of Amontillado” , he writes of Irony, and how because of the abstractness of the concept that it can sometimes be difficult to find. In The Cask of Amontillado, we are shown read of many examples of Irony.
One example as Nevi writes is the Carnival setting, “The story’s setting is ironic in that a carnival is a place for gaiety, happiness, and fun and games, not for cruel, cold-blooded murder.” (Nevi, 462)
Fortunato as Nevi points out, it in theory supposed to be the jester in this tale. But he’s not. He dresses as a jester, but I feel that poe plays a game here. Instead of laughing at Fortunato, we are made to pity him. I believe that the use of images helps amplify the use of irony and make the examples more evident. For example, as seen above in page 33 in the comic, the aloofness of Fortunato is clear, he is incoherent, drunk, and very helpless and we are left to see Montresor begin to enact his revenge. Secondly, the setting is anything but dark. The sky is full of bright colors, and the background full of strange, but fascinating creatures and Montresor himself looks sincere in the first image, but it’s all a rouse, because behind that sincerity, he is still a cold-blooded murderer.
“My friend, no. It is not the engagement, but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted. The vaults are insufferably damp. They are encrusted with nitre.”
“Let us go, nevertheless. The cold is merely nothing. Amontillado! You have been imposed upon. And as for Luchresi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado.”
Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm; and putting on a mask of black silk and drawing a roquelaire closely about my person, I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo.
There were no attendants at home; they had absconded to make merry in honour of the time. I had told them that I should not return until the morning, and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to insure their immediate disappearance, one and all, as soon as my back was turned.
I took from their sconces two flambeaux, and giving one to Fortunato, bowed him through several suites of rooms to the archway that led into the vaults. I passed down a long and winding staircase, requesting him to be cautious as he followed. We came at length to the foot of the descent, and stood together upon the damp ground of the catacombs of the Montresors.
The gait of my friend was unsteady, and the bells upon his cap jingled as he strode.
“The pipe,” said he.
“It is farther on,” said I; “but observe the white web-work which gleams from these cavern walls.”
In our original text images are presented in very direct detail, but of the surroundings, and path to the catacombs we are given but a little. From the original text, we can assume that estate of Montresor was quite large, calling it a palazzo or palace. Also noting that there were “several suites of rooms” something that we are shown in the classic comics edition. One distinction we can see from the original is the literal description of walking down into the catacombs,
“We came at length to the foot of the descent.” (The Cask of Amontillado)
What doing this in words does in comparison to illustrations is that it lengthens the suspense, the scene, and emotions, it draws out the feelings of dread that the comic illustrations would prompt us to move quickly from one to the next. In contrast, the comic allows us to see the turn in the story. We are taken from the carnival, festive atmosphere and the lit-up sky, to the underground, surrounded by Secondly, it provides a clear view of the Montresor palace, which is all in shadow, foreshadowing that it was a site of anything but dark and evil matters as we see an array of weapon, skulls and death.
He turned towards me, and looked into my eyes with two filmy orbs that distilled the rheum of intoxication.
“Nitre?” he asked, at length.
“Nitre,” I replied. “How long have you had that cough?”
“Ugh! ugh! ugh! — ugh! ugh! ugh! — ugh! ugh! ugh! — ugh! ugh! ugh! — ugh! ugh! ugh!”
My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes.
“It is nothing,” he said, at last.
“Come,” I said, with decision, “we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible. Besides, there is Luchresi ——”
“Enough,” he said; “the cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough.”
“True — true,” I replied; “and, indeed, I had no intention of alarming you unnecessarily — but you should use all proper caution. A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps.”
Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a long row of its fellows that lay upon the mould.
“Drink,” I said, presenting him the wine.
He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me familiarly, while his bells jingled.
“I drink,” he said, “to the buried that repose around us.”
“And I to your long life.”
He again took my arm, and we proceeded.
“These vaults,” he said, “are extensive.”
“The Montresors,” I replied, “were a great and numerous family.”
“I forget your arms.”
“A huge human foot d’or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel.”
“And the motto?”
“Nemo me impune lacessit.”
“Good!” he said.
The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled. My own fancy grew warm with the Medoc. We had passed through long walls of piled skeletons, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost recesses of the catacombs. I paused again, and this time I made bold to seize Fortunato by an arm above the elbow.
“The nitre!” I said: “see, it increases. It hangs like moss upon the vaults. We are below the river’s bed. The drops of moisture trickle among the bones. Come, we will go back ere it is too late. Your cough ——”
“It is nothing,” he said; “let us go on. But first, another draught of the Medoc.”
I broke and reached him a flaçon of De Grâve. He emptied it at a breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He laughed and threw the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not understand.
I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the movement — a grotesque one.
“You do not comprehend?” he said.
“Not I,” I replied.
“Then you are not of the brotherhood.”
“How?”
“You are not of the masons.”
“Yes, yes,” I said; “yes, yes.”
“You? Impossible! A mason?”
“A mason,” I replied.
“A sign,” he said, “a sign.”
“It is this,” I answered, producing from beneath the folds of my roquelaire a trowel.
“You jest,” he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. “But let us proceed to the Amontillado.”
“Be it so,” I said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak and again offering him my arm. He leaned upon it heavily. We continued our route in search of the Amontillado. We passed through a range of low arches, descended, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame.
At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another less spacious. Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris. Three sides of this interior crypt were still ornamented in this manner. From the fourth side the bones had been thrown down, and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a mound of some size. Within the wall thus exposed by the displacing of the bones, we perceived a still interior crypt or recess, in depth about four feet, in width three, in height six or seven. It seemed to have been constructed for no especial use within itself, but formed merely the interval between two of the colossal supports of the roof of the catacombs, and was backed by one of their circumscribing walls of solid granite.
It was in vain that Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch, endeavoured to pry into the depths of the recess. Its termination the feeble light did not enable us to see.
“Proceed,” I said; “herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchresi ——”
“He is an ignoramus,” interrupted my friend, as he stepped unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his heels. In an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche, and finding his progress arrested by the rock, stood stupidly bewildered. A moment more and I had fettered him to the granite. In its surface were two iron staples, distant from each other about two feet, horizontally. From one of these depended a short chain, from the other a padlock. Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too much astounded to resist. Withdrawing the key I stepped back from the recess.
“Pass your hand,” I said, “over the wall; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed, it is very damp. Once more let me implore you to return. No? Then I will positively leave you. But I must first render you all the little attentions in my power.”
“The Amontillado!” ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered from his astonishment.
“True,” I replied; “the Amontillado.”
As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones of which I have before spoken. Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered a quantity of building stone and mortar. With these materials and with the aid of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche.
I had scarcely laid the first tier of my masonry when I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in great measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning cry from the depth of the recess. It was not the cry of a drunken man. There was then a long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, and the third, and the fourth; and then I heard the furious vibration of the chain. The noise lasted for several minutes, during which, that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labours and sat down upon the bones. When at last the clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel, and finished without interruption the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh tier. The wall was now nearly upon a level with my breast. I again paused, and holding the flambeaux over the mason-work, threw a few feeble rays upon the figure within.
A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back. For a brief moment I hesitated, I trembled. Unsheathing my rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess; but the thought of an instant reassured me. I placed my hand upon the solid fabric of the catacombs, and felt satisfied. I reapproached the wall. I replied to the yells of him who clamoured. I re-echoed — I aided — I surpassed them in volume and in strength. I did this, and the clamourer grew still.
It was now midnight, and my task was drawing [column 2:] to a close. I had completed the eighth, the ninth [[,]] and the tenth tier. I had finished a portion of the last and the eleventh; there remained but a single stone to be fitted and plastered in. I struggled with its weight; I placed it partially in its destined position. But now there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon my head. It was succeeded by a sad voice, which I had difficulty in recognising as that of the noble Fortunato. The voice said —
“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!”
“The Amontillado!” I said.
“He! he! he! — he! he! he! — yes, the Amontillado. But is it not getting late? Will not they be awaiting us at the palazzo — the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone.”
“Yes,” I said, “let us be gone.”
“For the love of God, Montresor!”
“Yes,” I said, “for the love of God!”
But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud —
“Fortunato!”
No answer. I called again —
“Fortunato!” No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so. I hastened to make an end of my labour. I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat!