Psychopaths have roamed the earth since the creation of mankind, whether they stay hidden or unleash themselves like Jack the Ripper. “The Cask of Amontillado” and “A Rose for Emily” each incorporate a psychopathic character, Montresor and Emily, that lets loose when threatened. However, one might have reason for their illness. Although “The Cask of Amontillado” and “A Rose for Emily” share main characters that are vengeful, murderous, and mentally ill, the significant differences of these characters are their attachment to their victim, their lives, and how mental they are, which creates unique circumstances for their stories to take place.
The similarities between these stories consists of a common goal of revenge, murderous, and psychopathic.
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However, he truly seeks revenge for many insults from Fortunato and creates a well thought out trap. Fortunato is already intoxicated from the party and has a cough from the nitre in the cave. Rather than turning back, Montresor decides “presenting him with the wine,” would further his tipsiness(210). This causes him to be blind to the fact that they are alone and he is being led deeper and deeper into a trap. They end at a crypt and Fortunato is told the wine is stored in a recess. So, the drunk Fortunato goes into the recess and is chained up by Montresor. He proceeds to fill the recess, trapping Fortunato inside and leaves. Montresor has gotten his revenge but he has gone farther, like a psychopath, murdering his enemy. Mrs. Emily Grierson, the main character is “A Rose for Emily” …show more content…
Montresor disguises his hate for Fortunato as a friend willing to let him taste a unique wine. Montresor is also a rich man that is has a high social class placement. He leaves Fortunato to die in an inauditory place for rescue. This elucidates the carefulness that Montresor takes in trapping Fortunato. On the contrary, Mrs. Grierson has always been looked upon as lonely widow. Now she is comforted by a partner and that is special to her, so when she kills Homer, her boyfriend, the body is kept for the fact that she still wants to be with him. Both of the characters as upper-class, but Montresor has had a normal life as a member of a powerful family. A lonely outcast widow has a much different life. This traumatized life might has caused the illness in Emily. But Montresor is keeping his family motto alive, that is to never let anyone offend you. These people can be considered insane, but Emily has some reason behind this insanity. “Two years after her father’s death and a short time after her sweetheart,” she has experienced two family deaths in a short period of time(53). This would mentally confused even the strongest. Montresor kills Fortunato out of cold blood, because a family motto is no excuse. Now, as you can see, these are some very different
Montresor tells the story in detail of how he leads a man, Fortunato, to his death. Montresor repeatedly expresses the need to kill Fortunato because he has done something to insult him and he must pay for it with his life. Montresor tells readers early in the story that he is going to be lying to Fortunato’s face by acting one way, but thinking about killing him the whole time. He says "I continued, as was my wont, to smile in
This is the part that is shocking and morbid, even sadistic, to the average person. What strikes the reader the most is that Montressor, as he narrates his actions, still has the gall to call Fortunato his "friend," even as he builds the walls within which he is to trap Fortunato alive. The last time Montressor calls Fortunato his "friend" is the moment when he leads Fortunato straight to the "bait," which was the wine.
The story initially starts off telling us the situation where Fortunato had wounded Montresor a “thousand” times. One day, Fortunato goes too far and insults Montresor ultimately resulting in Montresor vowing revenge. Montresor has to craft a perfect plan, for if Fortunato is able to revenge him in return then Montresor’s efforts will have been in vain.
To begin with, Montresor taking revenge on Fortunato is quite evil. When Montresor trick Fortunato down to the cellar by using Fortunato’s ego and taste in wine it is very cool and calculating. In the text Montresor says, “ As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchesi. If anyone has a critical turn, it is he. He will tell me--.” (Montresor 58) This plays off of Fortunato ego saying somebody else had a better taste in wine then he did. In like manner, Montresor was very happy and excited to see Fortunato during carnival. Which is just an act to lure Fortunato to the catacombs. Montresor says in his head, “ 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.” (Montresor57) Furthermore, Montresor offers many times for Fortunato to turn back because of the cold or of his health. The short story states, “ Come sais Montresor, we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was.” This is cruel because once Fortunato gets to the bottom of the catacombs he will never get to turn back.
Montresor’s actions lend to his vengeful and manipulative nature. He lures Fortunato into the catacombs of his home to carry out his plans to kill Fortunato. In the first step of his plan, he boosts Fortunato’s ego by saying that Luchesi was almost as worthy a judge of wine as he. Then Montresor tricks Fortunato into believing that there is an
<br>The way the narrator treats his enemy is one of the clearest examples for ironic elements. When the characters meet, Montresor realises that Fortunato is afflicted with a severe cold, nevertheless he makes a point of him looking "remarkably well". Montresor acts in the most natural and friendly way towards the man object of his revenge, and even praises his "friend's" knowledge in the subject of wines. Also upon their meeting, Montresor begins a psychological manipulation of Fortunato. He claims that he needs his knowledge to ascertain that the wine he has purchased is indeed Amontillado. Furthermore, he acknowledges that Fortunato is engaged in another business (i.e.: the celebration of carnival), so he would go to Luchresi, who, one is made to believe, is a competitor of Fortunato's. To these words, Fortunato is forced by his pride to accompany Montresor to the vaults (where the Amontillado is kept), dissipate his doubts and also to prove his higher status than Luchresi as a connoisseur of wine. In fact, during their way down under in the catacombs, the twisted mind of Montresor, dares to give Fortunato the chance to go back, due to the almost unbearable dampness and foulness rampant in the vaults and Fortunato's state of health. The narrator clearly knows about the stubborn nature of Fortunato, and is
During those time periods the stories took place, the rich and noble class of society were not checked or questioned about their behavior, which gave them the opportunity to commit many actions including murder without being held accountable. In addition, both stories illustrate the effect of isolation on a person, which can lead to insanity. Both Montresor and Emily were victims of isolation, which impacted their behaviors and actions and drove them to commit
Throughout the short story, Montresor appears to be murderous and mentally insane. As Montresor continues to tell his story, the reader learns that Montresor is not only a murder and insane, but he is a narcissist as well. Montresor displays the characteristics for this to be true. When Montresor decided to take revenge on Fortunato, he was persistent in doing it himself for his own satisfaction. As his plan began to go along perfectly, he was very pleased with himself. In addition, the cause for Montresor’s revenge plan was because of an insult. The death of Fortunato was not justifiable by his actions. It was merely a prize for Montresor
Montresor sat alone feeling isolated and lonely in his empty house, and just thought about his life. He lost the love of his life, his career, success, and his wealth. Sitting on the floor in his dark, gloomy, disheveled living room, he then decided to make a change. He pounced up, ran to the kitchen and got rid of all the alcohol in his home and he declared he would never drink another day in his life! Alcohol was the one thing that ruined everything for him and he hated it and himself for giving it that power. Montresor began to withdraw from his friendship with Fortunato slightly because of his use of alcohol. It had been a while since they hung out and Fortunato wanted to introduce Montresor to the new girl he’d fallen in love with. Montresor heard a knock on his door, when he opened it he was shocked at what he had
After a couple of drinks Montresor warns Fortunato about the danger of consuming this wine because of the high levels of nitre that it has, foreshadowing for the audience, telling us the venom Fortunato is consuming. When Fortunato starts to feel bad Montresor offers him a drink to make him feel better, this is not an act of sympathy, it's just to keep Fortunato alive until his burial ground; and also to keep the audience waiting for the action to come.
Her relationship with her father is a total mystery, however it’s well implied that their relationship was more than the typical normal father and daughter relationship. For this reason the community wasn’t at all shocked that Emily was single and turning thirty. In denial about her father’s death, she refused to le the townspeople remove the body for three days. Once she met Homer Barron, Emily begins an undesirable affair. Many of the town people were happy she was with someone. Though it is soon found that Homer played for the other team, Emily goes to the pharmacist for poison, it is then that the townspeople think that she will kill herself. After buying the arsenic, the next time they see her it’s stated, “she had grown fat and her hair was turning gray” (Faulkner 521). This perhaps the result of Homer Barron’s murder and the loss of her dad. At seventy four years old, Emily died in her home “She died in one of the downstairs rooms, in a heavy walnut bed with a curtain, her gray head propped on a pillow yellow and moldy with age and lack of sunlight” (Faulkner 521). The major plot twist is that the townspeople find Homer Barron in a bedroom upstairs, lying in a lover’s embrace, with the indentation of a head upon the pillow next to him and one “long strand of iron gray hair” (Faulkner 522). Ms. Emily is “jilted” by the death of her father and Homer Barron leaving her. Since her father isolated her so well
Taking advantage of him being a superior wine connoisseur, he tempts him into a death trap by saying he received a pipe of Amontillado. Montresor is very sly and uses reverse psychology to lure him into the catacombs where he buries him alive. Montresor must now live with the fact that he committed a murder for the rest of his life. Both Emily and Montresor must live with death. Both of these characters would seem abnormal to society because they have committed crimes and do not feel guilty for their actions.
It is believed that she would want to keep Homer Barron for herself, like a prize or trophy, and even though her father believed that no one would ever be good enough for her, Homer could never be hers because of his interests in young men. So, Emily would, devise a plan to murder Homer, she feared that should would be left alone again and allowing the townspeople to believe the two are married. The acts committed by Emily are comparable to those of Jeffery Dahmer in that he kept his victims as trophies. According to Encyclopedia
As the story progresses, Montresor devises a careful plan to lure Fortunato to his death trap, but he is careful enough not to place himself at risk. He approaches him at a carnival, and plays on his victim’s weakness for wine by offering to show him a brand of wine akin to the light Spanish sherry, Amontillado (8). The narrator presents an interesting description of his encounter with Fortunato at the carnival; at first expressing dislike for his friend’s behavior by claiming that he approached him with too much warmth since he was drunk, but then he adds that he was extremely delighted to see Fortunato at that particular moment. This illustrates the depth of Montresor’s desire to exert revenge on his friend, since the sole reason of his pleasure at seeing Fortunato is that he knew his plans had taken off, and he anticipated the satisfaction of the act of brutal revenge.
The story has subtle clues of how the grotesque conclusion will end. The name Fortunato has an indication of luck, a word association that his success is from being lucky. A fortune possessed that was not earned infuriating our narrator. The Fortunato has a rising social status, a status that used to be associated with the Montresor family name. This is stated by the remark, “You are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed” illustrates the Montresor who has a social status in decline and the