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“The Cask of Amontillado” – Edgar Allan Poe (pg 61 – 68)
Fill out the following short story element chart for “The Cask of Amontillado”. Answer questions after reading a short section. This will encourage you to think and connect to the story while you read. This is called active reading. Many questions will focus on tone and mood and how a reader makes predictions using tone and mood clues.
Tone
The attitude of the author towards his audience and subject
Mood
The feeling created in the reader by a literary work
“THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled - but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved, precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.”
Paraphrase (put in your own words) this opening text or exposition of the story:
re·dress = To set right; remedy or rectify.
LITERAL
Section 1: Vocabulary
What is the meaning of the following words in the context in which they appear:
a) Catacombs –
b) Virtuoso -
c) Motley -
d) Arms -
e) Fettered -
f) Promiscuously -
g) Impunity -
h) Gait -
Reading Questions –
Page 61: What does the narrator promise? How does he take charge of his life with this promise?
Page 62: What role do you predict Fortunato’s “weak point” will play in the narrator’s revenge?
Page 63: What common interest does the narrator share with Fortunato?
Page 64: What fate does this conversation foreshadow for Fortunato?
Page 65: Read “Literature in Context” and answer the question: What qualities of gothic fiction do you find in “The Cask of Amontillado”? Explain.
Page 66: What is the mood (general feeling) of the passage on page 66? Cite details from the text to support your description.
Page 66: “But I must first render you all the little attentions in my power.” What does this sentence suggest about the mood of the text yet to be read?
Page 67: Did the predictions you made earlier help you to concentrate on your reading? Why?
Page 67: How does Fortunado become locked in the chains so easily?
Page 68: Montresor acts as both victim and judge in this story. Do you think that Montresor sees the truth and acts appropriately? Explain.
- Setting: Background of the story. The setting includes both time and place (when and where the story takes place).
- Look for the actual geographical location (topography, scenery, and physical arrangements). Be sure to indicate below each time the setting changes.
- Look for the occupations and daily manner of living of the characters
- Look for the time period in which the action takes place
- Look for the general environment of the characters (e.g. religious, mental, moral, social, and emotional conditions through which the people in the narrative move)
Characterization – Means by which the author reveals the personality of the characters. There are 4 ways the author reveals character (direct and indirect characterization)
- Description of physical appearance
- Characters’ conversation (what he says or thinks)
- Characters’ actions (what he does)
- Reactions (how a character reacts to his environment or how other characters react to him).
Fortunato –
Montresor -
Point of view: The vantage point from which a story is told; whose eyes we see the action through. There are 3 kinds of point of view.
- Omniscient – the author is all-knowing; he knows how the characters think and feel, what is going on inside all the character’s’ heads simultaneously. The author uses the third person pronouns (he, she, they) to tell the story.
- Personal or 1st person – The story is told by one of the characters, using the first person pronoun “I”. This “I” should not be confused with the author of the story (unless you know that it is a nonfiction autobiography); it is the personal point of view of that one character.
- 3rd person limited – the author lets us see and hear what the character sees and hears. We do not know the thechracters feels unless he (the author) tells us through words, actions, or the descriptions of the character. This is a more limited form of the omniscient point of view.
To what extent can the narrator be relied upon to give an accurate portrayal of events? How might the reader’s view of his actions change if the story were written in the third person?
Plot: Sequence of events in a story; what happens in a story, in te correct order; an account in prose or verse of an actual or fictional event or a sequence of such events.
- Exposition – introduction of characters and setting
- Rising action – introduction of conflict or some complication factor
1. External
a. man vs. man
b. man vs. society
c. man vs. nature
d. man vs. fate
2. internal
a. man vs. himself
- Climax – the crisis or turning point in the story. This single event occurs when the main character takes decisive action to end the conflict.
- Falling action – after the climax, the point where final details are worked out and the ending is suggested.
- Resolution – the ending or epilogue, in which all remaining loose ends or threads of the plot or tied up (denouement)
- In chronological order (step-by-step)
- Order of importance
- Flashback technique (depicting events that happened earlier)
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Theme: The central idea of a story, the meaning. DO NOT confuse theme with moral. Not all writing necessarily has a moral.
Write a one sentence theme statement for this story.
English 92 A“The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan PoePage 1