An Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Cask of Amontillado' 2022

Running head: ESSAY ANALYSIS
Essay Analysis
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1ESSAY ANALYSIS
Description:
In the article “Method to the Madness” the author Patrick Mcgrath takes the example of
different kinds of novels written by authors and analyses its narrative through the gothic genre.
He talks about Edgar Allen Poe’s story “The Cask of Amontillado”, where he says that the
author does not let his readers to escape out from the actual essence of the story, because the
narrator of the story is unreliable, trapping us in the suffocating structure of the story from where
we can only escape after coming to the end of it (Mcgrath). Similarly he says that there have
been many authors and novelists who have dealt with mental or psychotic illness and madness as
the themes of their novels. He says that Charles Brocken Brown in his American novel
“Wieland” appoints the narrator who had himself been a lunatic (Mcgrath). Similarly, Charlotte
Perkins Gilman in her story “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar” both deal
with the protagonists of the story who suffer from mental illness. He also takes the example of
Janet Frame’s novel, “Faces in the Water”, and Jean Rhys’ “Wide Sargasso Sea”. Through the
examples of these novels, the author Patrick Mcgrath tells his readers that schizophrenia and the
psychotic problems are not just mere stories told through the protagonists(Mcgrath). According
to him, although these stories dealing with such characters make them different from other
authors’ novels, but the reason for such plots is never rando(Mcgrath). What he wants to say is
that the authors might have been themselves suffering from any sort of mental dysfunction due to
which they could portray the narrative so beautifully making our literature rich in its complexity
(Mcgrath).
In the essay, “The Motive for Murder in ‘The Cask of Amontillado”, the author Elena V.
Barbara, deals with the criticism of the short story, “The Cask of Amontillado”, written by Edgar

2ESSAY ANALYSIS
Allen Poe. HE says that the readers and critics analyses the story and concludes that Montresor
had been a lunatic since he had no motive in killing Fortunato (Barbaran). In this article he
argues about the hypothesis that there had been proper information embedded into the story itself
and there had been a definite reason behind the crime that Montresor had committed. The author
here analyses an criticizes the depth of the story and says that Montresor had been of an
aristocratic lineage, which is quite evident from his own narration, and due to the social status,
he did commit the crime, however according to him, Montresor did not basically commit a
crime, but he did an act of punishment or vengeance as is evident from the tone of narration of
Montresor (Barbaran). Barbara also concludes her essay by saying that the last words of
Montresor had been a clear proof that the motive of his murder had been vengeance because the
words that he had last spoken are generally said at the Requiem Mass (Barbaran). According to
the author, he had not been lunatic but had been seeking forgiveness as a repentant sinner. The
essay says that Montresor basically punished Fortunate due to the deed that he had done fifty
years ago (Barbaran).
Issue:
Although both of the essays are very well crafted and they deal with the issue with utmost
clarity, there are some issues that I have faced. The issue that I have with the first essay by is
that there had not been any clear evidence as in what had actually been the scenario behind the
mental illness of the protagonist. The author in his essay does not deal with the reasons behind
the same. According to Azelrod – Sokolov, he takes examples and lets the readers know that no
mental illness or psychotic deed happens without cause. This is indeed informative on one hand
and indeed lets the readers ponder upon their own insight as in what had gone wrong with the