Jay Jacoby (essay date 1979)


Jay Jacoby (essay date 1979)

SOURCE: "Fortunato's Premature Demise in 'The Cask of Amontillado'," in Poe Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2, December, 1979, pp. 30-1.

[In the following essay, Jacoby addresses the significance of Fortunato's silence.]

"The Cask of Amontillado" is occasionally read as a perverse success story of a perfectly executed revenge in which crime does pay,1 and, more frequently, as a tale of cosmic and psychological retribution akin to "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Black Cat," and "The Imp of the Perverse." Critics of the...

(The entire page is 1743 words.)

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