The Cask of the Amontillado, by Edgar Allen Poe Term Paper

The Cask of the Amontillado, by Edgar Allen Poe - Term Paper Example Some literary experts suggested Poe got his idea for this story from being a former mason. The Cask of Amontillado fascinated its readers for the gruesome death of its victim. The manner of death was being entombed or buried alive by enclosure within a concrete wall. The technical term for this manner of execution is immurement, but there is a big difference in this death from being merely buried alive, such as being put into the ground. Immurement is a particularly painful and slow death due to dehydration and starvation, a manner of torture. A person buried alive dies from asphyxiation and death is much quicker, while being entombed through immurement signifies a lingering death which could take days or weeks. A lot of myths, stories and legends surround this manner of execution by immurement among a lot of people, especially in southeastern Europe due to superstitious beliefs arising from cases of bad luck in which buildings and bridges collapse inexplicably for no apparent reason at all. This short story can be better understood if viewed within the times it was written. It was a time of frenetic construction activities since this period coincided with rise of Industrial Revolution in which men and machines were able to build at a much greater pace. However, a superstition prevails in which a human sacrifice is sometimes needed to make the construction a success, and this gave rise to the various urban legends about immurement. This may partly explain the popularity of The Cask of Amontillado when it was published in 1846. Personal conflict – the protagonist and the antagonist in this short story engaged in a conflict that was personal in nature. In Montresor, as the storys narrator and also its criminal, author Poe implied some motive to his crime but it was not stated clearly what the reason was. The motive was vague and Poe merely left it to the readers to