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Keywords: Poe; narrator; tale; crime story; revenge; religion; Christianity; Freemasonry; dissimulation; unreliability
Abstract
This article focuses on one of Edgar Allan Poe's famous tales, The Cask of Amontillado, a story of "perfect crime", as it is usually considered. The action is set in medieval Italy, at the time of the Carnival, in Venice. The protagonists are two noblemen, Montresor and Fortunado. Montresor is the narrator of the text and wants to revenge on Fortunado, because of a mysterious "insult". Fortunado's "mistake" is never made clear, although the punishment for the trespassing as such is extreme (Fortunado will eventually pay with his own life). The article tries to explain the enigma behind the "insult". This takes us into an occult world, where the identities of the characters change dramatically (they are, successively, social competitors, religious enemies and rival Masons). Poe's symbolism and epic games become here remarkable tools of constructing and amplifying the mystery. The Cask of Amontillado should therefore be viewed as a masterpiece of the American Romanticism and of "horror genre" as well.
Edgar Allan Poe, the leading American romantic, became famous - post mortem, if we may add - primarily for his "tales of the grotesque and arabesque", which, as we know, abound in monstrous assassinations. One in particular - quite remarkable for its brevity -, The Cask of Amontillado, illustrates something more than a gruesome murder. It attempts to minutely establish the steps of a perfect crime. Let us follow closely the phases of the diabolical plan and try to understand what exactly generates the already mentioned "perfection"! The story is set in traditional Italy, at the time of the Venetian Carnival. We should clarify, at this very early stage, the spiritual significance of the "Carnival" (a specific Catholic feast), since it will turn out to be immensely useful later on. Thus, originally, "carnival" means "meat removal" (carnelevamen in Latin, carnevale in Italian) and is celebrated just before the beginning of Lent. The less spectacular Romanian equivalent of this religious event is the so-called lăsata secului, i.e. the cessation of meat consumption.
The action of Poe's tale develops during this great symbolic masquerade of Venice and it happens so because of the indicated "perfect crime". The narrator and, simultaneously, the assassin...