The Cask of Amontilladoby Edgar Allan Poe

Cultural Literacy

and

Background for Understanding

“…but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.”

“The Cask of Amontillado” is the narrator’s account of his ability

to carry out a chilling plot of revenge against his offender.

Precision in time, place, and setting preclude the idea of risk and allow the narrator both the

retribution he seeks and the impunity he demands.

Carnival

Carnival

• Carnival is a secular holiday, but it evolved from the Christian observance known as Lent.

• Lent is a solemn forty-day period of fasting prior to Easter.

CARNIVAL

• Traditionally, the fasting during Lent involves abstaining from eating meat.

• Modern interpretations of fasting may involve abstaining from anything one enjoys.

Carn + Val

FLESH (Meat) + FAREWELL

In anticipation of the solemnity of Lent, the celebration of Carnival evolved.

Participants engage in excessive and extreme behavior to bid farewell to meat-eating (and merriment).

What happens during Carnival?

• Carnival is a time of EXCESS and INDULGENCE.

• BINGEING upon food and alcohol is common.

Partying in the streets and masquerading are enjoyed.

The combination of alcohol and costumes creates an atmosphere where people tend to let down

their inhibitions.

European Carnival traditions survive in the United States in

the form of Mardi Gras.

“The Cask of Amontillado” is set during the “supreme madness” of

Carnival.

In such a riotous atmosphere, it is easy to see how a crime could go

unnoticed.

Lifestyles of the Rich

Circa 1700-1800

The wealthy class enjoyed indulgences such as

• Gemmary

Painting

Palazzos (mansions)

•

Fine Wine (vintages)

Vineyards, where the grapes for producing wine are grown, create picturesque settings for owners’

estates.

The narrator plans for his revenge to take place in the

catacombs beneath his estate.

What are catacombs?

Catacombs: Cities of the Dead

At a certain point in European history, catacombs, underground burial chambers, became a viable

alternative to cemeteries.

Catacombs are characterized by extensive tunnels leading to

chambers or recesses where the dead repose for eternity.

The wealthy could opt for family catacombs beneath their estates.

The narrator of “The Cask of Amontillado” carries out his

revenge within the catacombs beneath his palazzo.

The narrator is able to lure his victim into the catacombs with the promise of amontillado, a

fine sherry wine.(The l’s are pronounced like the

l’s in tortilla.)

The “supreme madness” of Carnival aside, why doesn’t the suggestion of a journey to the catacombs for a taste of wine seem odd or suspicious to the

victim?

The Storage of Wine

For wines to maintain their best quality, they need to be stored at

fairly cool and constant temperatures.

During the time period in which the story is set, modern electric refrigeration was not available.

To protect wine collections, connoisseurs adopted the practice of storing wines under the ground where temperatures remain ideal

year-round.

Basements, cellars, and even catacombs serve as excellent

storage facilities for the precious vintages.

Herein, where wine bottles intermingle with the bones of the dead, the narrator carries out his

plan for revenge.

Edgar Allan Poe

• Author, not the narrator, of the story.

• Developed characters whose sanity is questionable.

• Universally credited

as a significant contributor to the development of the short story as a literary genre.

“The Cask of Amontillado”

A legend holds that the inspiration for "The Cask of Amontillado" came from a story Poe had heard at Castle Island in Massachusetts when he was a private there in 1827 (Bergen 106). According to this legend, Poe was told the story of a brawl in which one lieutenant named Drane killed another officer, named Massie, after a

disagreement at cards. Some versions of the legend hold that Drane was subsequently buried alive by friends of Massie, but this report appears to be an

inaccuracy influenced by Poe's story, as Drane is known to have been alive years later. A report of a skeleton discovered on the island may be a confused

remembering of Poe's major source, Joel Headley's "A Man Built in a Wall," which recounts the author's seeing an immured skeleton in the wall of a church in

Italy (Mabbott 1254).

Sources

Coil, Suzanne M. Mardi Gras (photos by Michael Osborne). New York: Macmillan, 1994. France: A Culinary Journey. San Francisco: Collins, 1992. Poe, Edgar A. “The Cask of Amontillado” Literature. Prentice Hall: Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1998. “Underground Paris: The Catacombs.” www.triggur.org.