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Tue 13 Sep, 2005 08:10 pm
After having to read "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson we now have to read "The Cask of Amontillado. Well, i just read it and i have no idea what it means or what is actually going on in the story
Now i recently had a discussion about "The Lottery" on this forum :
Link Here and i hope to have the same sort of responses here but im pretty sure i need more guidance here :wink:
tcook,
Welcome to A2K !
This is one of my favorite short stories. What specifically don't you get about it ?
It's Poe, so it's pretty dark.
Montressor vs. Fortunato round 35.
This time it's personal.
btw, it's pronounced a- mon- tee- ahh-tho. :wink:
well i don't really understand where they are and what theyre doing towards the end haha. I have never really read Poe before so i was going into the story assuming everything wrong
help?
It's set in Italy during the carnival season. Everyone is out getting drunk and making merry. Re-read the first two pages slowly.
I'll try and help.
i undertstand that aspect but i dont understand what "vaults" were and the nitrate that made them cough? it just all confused me there. then the bones at the end. man it totally just dropped after that
Here are the lyrics to the Alan Parsons' Project song by the same name.
Quote:By the last breath of the four winds that blow
I'll have revenge upon Fortunato
Smile in his face I'll say "come let us go
I've a cask of Amontillado"
Sheltered inside from the cold of the snow
Follow me now to the vault down below
Drinking the wine as we laugh at the time
Which is passing incredibly slow
(What are these chains that are binding my arms?)
Part of you dies each passing day
(Say it's a game and I'll come to no harm)
You'll feel your life slipping away
You who are rich and whose troubles are few
May come around to see my point of view
What price the Crown of a King on his throne
When you're chained in the dark all alone
(Spare me my life only name your reward)
Part of you dies each brick I lay
(Bring back some light in the name of the Lord)
You'll feel your mind slipping away
I have no idea if this is helpful, but it's a good song in any event. Cheers.
Under old estates, they had burial vaults for family etc.
Imagine being in a dark damp cellar , and maybe being older and not in the best of health...
You've been drinking too much...
and your host is trying to kill you, but you don't know it.
Perchance the lyrics weren't helpful, here is a
summary.
Ticomaya wrote:Here are the lyrics to the Alan Parsons' Project song by the same name.
Quote:By the last breath of the four winds that blow
I'll have revenge upon Fortunato
Smile in his face I'll say "come let us go
I've a cask of Amontillado"
Sheltered inside from the cold of the snow
Follow me now to the vault down below
Drinking the wine as we laugh at the time
Which is passing incredibly slow
(What are these chains that are binding my arms?)
Part of you dies each passing day
(Say it's a game and I'll come to no harm)
You'll feel your life slipping away
You who are rich and whose troubles are few
May come around to see my point of view
What price the Crown of a King on his throne
When you're chained in the dark all alone
(Spare me my life only name your reward)
Part of you dies each brick I lay
(Bring back some light in the name of the Lord)
You'll feel your mind slipping away
I have no idea if this is helpful, but it's a good song in any event. Cheers.
Tico,
For god's sake , we're not trying to scare our young friend.
Just kidding of course. I too went through an APP phase.
I had to lie to my punk friends.
tcook215 wrote:i undertstand that aspect but i dont understand what "vaults" were and the nitrate that made them cough? it just all confused me there. then the bones at the end. man it totally just dropped after that
Nitrates (in the form of Potassium Nitrate) tend to form on the walls of burial vaults (i.e. crypts). The nitrates come from the decaying flesh of corpses and crystalize on the walls.
You'd get the same effect (and smell) by having 30 or 40 of your friends pee on your basement floor and letting it sit there for a few weeks. Walking into the basement would probably cause most people to cough a bit.
LionTamerX wrote:Just kidding of course. I too went through an APP phase.
I had to lie to my punk friends.
What are you talking about, LTX? APP rocks! "
Eye in the Sky" .... need I say more?
Montresor is a lunatic who imagines that Fortunato has wronged him, and seals him up in his wine cellar.
Well, he did wrong him; he insulted him.
I don't know if it helps (it depends on the level of your analysis of the text), but if you're interested in semiantics, you have to notice that "Montresor" (Mon trésor) in french means "my treasure", and "Fortunato" means "richness"...
What's not to understand? Montressor takes revenge on Fortunato during Carnival deason in Italy by luring him into an underground wine-cellar, chaining him to a wall in an alcove and then sealing the alcove off with brick and mortar. Obviously, Fortunato dies in there. The last lines -- "For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat!" -- tells us that this happened 50 years ago and that Fortunato's body is still sealed in its cellar grave. The final words, in Latin, mean 'Rest in Peace.' This is one of Poe's simpler -- if darker -- stories. If you found this hard to understand, don't even try "The Masque of the Red Death" or "fall of the House of Usher."
Well, first. Fortunato is a free mason and he insulted Montressor. Then, as Andy observed, the in pace requiescat, was a rather bizarre turn because it indicates to me that Fortunato got the last laugh, especially since he didn't beg for his life, but just jingled the bells on his cap. The "rest in peace" was a suggestion that Montressor was, in a way, haunted by what he had done.
Did anyone mention The Lottery? That short story was just a powerful observation about how ridiculous tradition can be.
After so much time, a half century, it seems Montressor is feeling compunction about what he had done to Fortunato so long ago. He is telling this person who so well knows the nature of his soul. It is as if he's near death, and old man half a century later; maybe he's even on his deathbed, and is confessing his crime to his confessor.
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