"The Cask Of Amon­til­la­do" Edgar Allan Poe AUDIO

• pub­lished: 12 Oct 2014
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“The Cask of Amon­til­la­do” by Edgar Allan Poe (1835) 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 I would be avenged; this was a point defini­tive­ly set­tled -- but the very defini­tive­ness with which it was re­solved pre­clud­ed the idea of risk. I must not only pun­ish, but pun­ish with im­puni­ty. A wrong is unre­dressed when re­tri­bu­tion over­takes its re­dress­er. It is equal­ly unre­dressed when the avenger fails to make him­self felt as such to him who has done the wrong. 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. He had a weak point -- this For­tu­na­to -- al­though in other re­gards he was a man to be re­spect­ed and even feared. He prid­ed him­self on 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 prac­tise im­pos­ture upon the British and Aus­tri­an mil­lion­aires. In paint­ing and gem­ma­ry1, 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. 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. 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." THE TEXT ENDS HERE DUE TO SPACE LIM­ITS 1. gem­ma­ry: the sci­ence of gems. 2. Amon­til­la­do: a medi­um dry sher­ry (an al­co­holic drink--you’ve never tast­ed it). 3. roque­laire: knee-length cloak. 4. Nemo me im­pune la­ces­sit: No one "cuts" (at­tacks) me with im­puni­ty. 5. flam­beaux: flam­ing torch. 6. In pace re­qui­escat: Rest in peace. ___________________________________ 1) What hints does the story pro­vide as to the "thou­sand in­juries" that For­tu­na­to has in­flict­ed on Mon­tre­sor? Do they serve to es­tab­lish a spe­cif­ic mo­tive for Mon­tre­sor's re­venge? 2) How does the con­trast­ing set­ting (the cat­a­combs ver­sus the car­ni­val) af­fect the tone of the story? 3) Why does the nar­ra­tor's heart grow sick at the end of the story? What is the mean­ing of Mon­tre­sor's own scream? 4) How does this story cre­ate sus­pense?