Edgar Allen Poe's The Cask Of Amontillado

Edgar Allen Poe’s the Cask of Amontillado is a well know work that is included in the curriculum of both high school and college level literature classes. In the beginning of the story we learn that a man named Fortunato has at some time in the recent past offended the narrator, Montresor, although we are never told what the offence was. We can however, assume that it had to do directly with Montresor’s family line because, he quotes more than once his family’s motto. When used in classrooms today, it is often stated that the narrator is a mentally ill or disturbed man who successfully executes a revenge-murder scheme. However this statement is only half true. The narrator, Montresor is in fact not a mentality unstable person, but is actually
Reverse psychology is suggesting and advocating for the opposite of your desired result, to in turn persuade your desired results. For example when Montresor planed this murder he coordinated it to occur during the peak night of Carnival, a time when his house staff would be desperately itching to be able to leave the home. So to ensure his staff would not be present to see him enter the home later that night with Fortunato, he gives them explicitly direct and exact instructions that they are not to leave the home under any circumstances and that he would not be home until early the following morning. This was the exact opportunity that the servants of the house needed to leave and enjoy carnival. Montresor knew that the second he ‘went away’ the servants would abandon the house and be none the wiser upon his ‘return’ the next
One of the most notable instances is when the two are deep in the catacombs and Fortunato makes a reference to the Free Masons, and while Montresor knows what Fortunato is inferring to, he chooses to make a joke that is ironic to himself, by pulling a trowel, or masonry tool out of his cloak. This ironic and alluding pun shows Montresor’s own verbal restraint and it attests to his ability to see things at alternate perspectives. A person who was incapable of rational thought would most certainly be incapable of making a witty pun without revealing his true