Plot

“The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe is structured respecting most of the pattern used to compose short stories, which we call plot. By plot, we understand the sequence of events: a beginning or an exposition, presenting the intrigue and the characters; a middle in which the main action takes place leading to a high point we call climax; and an ending including the falling action and the resolution.

The plot of the short story can also be summarized as follows: a man takes revenge on another man who has offended him by luring the man into the family vault to taste some wine and then walls him up.

Title

The title of the shorts story - “The Cask of Amontillado” - literally means a small barrel of sherry wine from a region in Spain called Montilla, which is usually rarer and harder to find.

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Beginning

The short story begins abruptly with the intrigue, without giving too many details about the setting or the characters. We suspect the events take place in Italy because of the names of the characters.

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Middle

The middle of the short story represents the rising action, increasing points of tension up to the fatal climax. Montresor lures Fortunato to his empty palace to allegedly confirm whether a wine he has recently obtained is Amontillado. The two of them go down to the family vault and walk among skeletons of Montresor’s ancestors and bottles of wine.

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Ending

The ending of the story presents Montresor finishing to wall Fortunato in his vault.

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