As a tale of heartless revenge, “The Cask of Amontillado” is one of Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous and lauded works. If you’d like to skip past the story, you can jump to 14:22 for the background information and my writing takeaways.
You can read a text version of my analysis on Medium: [ Ссылка ]
Read the text version of the short story here, with interactive definitions: [ Ссылка ]
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Behind-the-scenes notes for this video: [ Ссылка ]
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Title and End Music: “Clockwork” by Vindsvept - [ Ссылка ]
Background Music by Vindsvept:
+ “The Dead Marshes”
+ “Daylight’s End”
+ “Lycanthrophy"
MORE BACKGROUND INFO:
Writers often draw inspiration from each other, and Poe seemed to take his from the 1844 short story “A Man Built in a Wall” by Joel Tyler Headley. A critical essay by J. Gruesser from the collection “Poe and Place” notes the similarities, stating, “Headley tells a tale of vengeance in which the man was sealed alive behind the wall as his bitter enemy looked on,” and he “emphasizes the placing of the final stone to complete the entombment.” Poe makes the story his own by having Montresor carry out the burial himself instead of simply observing as a bystander. “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” Like Poe, you can recycle elements from your favorite stories and add your own twist.
The story was also fueled by Poe’s desire for revenge. At the time, he had a feud with fellow author Thomas Dunn English. The two former friends had a falling out over a relationship scandal, which led to a fistfight. Poe, who was also a literary critic, later bashed English’s work in a magazine and called him, “a man without the commonest school education busying himself in attempts to instruct mankind in topics of literature.” As revenge, English created a caricature of Poe in one of his novels, a drunkard named Marmaduke Hammerhead who says things like “Nevermore,” in reference to Poe’s “The Raven.” In response to English’s caricatures of him, Poe sued the tabloid newspaper for libel and won. In further retaliation, Poe modeled Fortunato after his enemy…and then essentially buried him alive. As the saying goes, “Don’t piss off a writer. They’ll put you in their book, and then they will kill you.”
Introduction (0:00)
Story Narration (0:42)
Background Information (14:22)
1. Narrative Focus (17:04)
2. Purposeful Details (19:00)
3. Building Suspense (22:21)
4. A Murderer's Perspective (23:42)
5. Room for Mystery (26:05)
