Wednesday, July 3, 2013

What two conditions must Montresor fulfill for satisfactory revenge?

At the beginning of the story, Montresor lists the following two conditions for a satisfactory revenge: the person taking revenge must do so with "impunity" and he must also "make himself felt as such to him who has done wrong." What Montresor means is that, first, the person taking revenge must be able to do so without being caught, and second, that the person he is taking revenge upon must know what is happening to him. In other words, it doesn't do any good to take revenge on a person if the person doesn't know you are hurting him. 


In "The Cask of Amontillado," Montresor goes out of his way to fulfill both conditions: he walls Fortunato into a catacomb far from any possibility of a witness and Fortunato knows, at least by the end, that he is being walled in and left to die. Fortunato knows who is killing him, and Montresor knows he won't be caught and be made to pay. But it is not clear that Fortunato knows why Montresor is taking vengeance on him: Montresor might say that doesn't matter. 

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