Who is the "you" addressed in the first paragraph of "The Cask of Amontillado"?

"You" is addressed to readers who supposedly know the Montresor. He says, "You who know the nature of my soul...In other words, Montresor assumes that some people who knew or know him are going to be reading his account of the death of Fortunato. Of course, he expects others to read his story, also; otherwise he would not have continued with the idea that he did not threaten Fortunato but planned his death in secret and waited for the right moment to carry it out. The end of the story suggests that Montresor is obviously proud his deed and may be getting to the end of his life and he wants others to know what her did. He states that it has been 50 years since he killed Fortunato and he has not been caught . Thus, the last cut at Fortunato comes when he says, "Rest in Peace" in the last line of the story signaling his assurance of never getting caught.

Who is the "You" addressed in the first paragraph of "The Cask of Amontillado"?

This is a question that has never been answered to everyone's satisfaction. Some readers have assumed that Montresor is making a verbal confession to a priest. One reader suggested that Montresor might be confiding in a grandson. My own opinion is that the "You" is an old male or female friend to whom Montresor is writing a letter. This literary device enables Poe to avoid a lot of exposition. The device enables Montresor to assume that the recipient of his letters already knows a great deal about him, including what he does for a living. After all, Montresor is making this disclosure fifty years after the fact, so it would appear that he has known this confidant, or confidante, for at least fifty years. It seems to me that the story should be taken as a translation of a letter that fell into the hands of an American editor named Edgar Allan Poe, who translated into English, either from the French or Italian, and published it in a ladies' magazine. Montresor could have sent the letter to the confidant, or confidante (my impression is that the recipient was a woman), and it was found among that person's papers upon his or her death. Another scenario might be that Montresor wrote a letter to this old friend one night when he was drunk and then decided not to send it when he read it over the next morning. Many of us have done something along these lines, haven't we? But Montresor didn't destroy the letter, and it was found among his own papers after he died. 

Poe does something similar in his "Ms. Found in a Bottle." That story is putatively a transcription of a manuscript which a desperate man put in a bottle and tossed overboard during a howling storm. "The Cask of Amontillado" might have been improved if Poe had at least indicated the identity of the person to whom the letter was sent--or not sent. It raises questions which do not seem to help the story. What is really important in appreciating the story is not in trying to deduce the identity of the person to whom it is being narrated as it is to understand Poe's purpose for using this anonymous interlocutor in the first place. What would be the effect of telling the story without pretending it is being told to some single individual? It seems that it would make the story read like an open confession to the world of Montresor's guilt. Why would he do that after keeping his secret for fifty years? It would be foolhardy. We can at least admire Montresor for being able to pull off the perfect crime and achieve the perfect revenge. But if he broadcast his guilt to the whole world in a moment of madness, we would lose all regard for him. A perfect crime is only perfect if nobody ever finds out whodunit. That seems to be a problem with writing a perfect-crime story. How can it be perfect if all of us readers know the identity of the perpetrator? Poe himself gives his recipe for a perfect crime at the beginning of the story.

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 definitely, 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.

He is obviously bragging about how successfully he carried out his plan for revenge. He does not seem to be confessing to any priest or seeking forgiveness. At the end of the story he makes the point that his plan was a complete success.

Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat!

He sounds triumphant. He cannot keep his triumph to himself. He has to share it with someone, so he decides to confide in the only person he thinks he can trust with his secret: You, who so well know the nature of my soul. Of course, we could read the story as if Montresor is personally addressing us! We are his old friend, the one who so well knows the nature of his soul. On the other hand, maybe there is no one he could ever trust, especially with such a dark and heavy secret. Maybe he is only addressing an imaginary friend, just as many people who keep diaries tend to think of the diary itself as a personal friend in whom they can confide anything. Each entry may begin with the words, "Dear Diary."

Poe wanted to write the story in the first person. But he did not want it to sound like a confession to the whole world, something like The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau or the confessions of the anonymous narrator of Poe's own "The Tell-Tale Heart." So Poe created the fiction that his story was a confidential disclosure to a single individual either verbally and in person or else in the form of a letter. My guess is that it was supposed to be a confidential letter that was so confidential it was never even sent.

Who is the "you" addressed in the first paragraph of "The Cask of Amontillado"? When and why is the story being told?

The terrifying short story "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe is, in essence, the confession of a murderer. A man named Montresor finds an acquaintance named Fortunato during carnival revelries and lures him deep into the family catacombs under his mansion. Once there, Montresor chains Fortunato to a wall, bricks up the opening to the chamber, and leaves him there buried alive. The only motivation that Montresor gives for this horrifying deed is that Fortunato insulted him.

There are several clues in the story as to who Montresor might be addressing and when and why the story is being told, but most of the answers ultimately involve speculation. The only definitive answer concerns when Montresor committed the crime. In the final paragraph, he describes finishing the brickwork in front of the chamber where Fortunato is chained, plastering over the bricks, and then finally placing a "rampart of bones." He then says that "for the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them." By this, we understand that Montresor is confessing to the murder 50 years after it happened.

In the beginning of the story, Montresor addresses "you, who so well know the nature of my soul." This infers that the person he is addressing is someone he knows intimately. Who would that be? We understand from the details that he provides in the story that he is of noble lineage. His family has their own crest, and they are wealthy enough to have private catacombs within which to inter their dead. Montresor refers to his home as a palazzo, or a palatial mansion. He can afford to keep servants and a collection of fine wines. From all this, we understand that Montresor is a nobleman with inherited wealth.

Since at the time of the murder, Montresor was presumably an adult in his twenties or thirties, by the time of the confession that comprises the short story, he would be in his seventies or eighties. He may be upon his deathbed and confessing his sins before he dies, perhaps as part of a sacrament or ceremony of last rites. In this case, the "you" he addresses in the story would be a priest who has come to give him absolution before death. It's also possible, though, that the "you" the story refers to could be a loved one that he trusts such as his wife, a child, or a grandchild, and he wants someone to know his terrible secret before he dies.

Who is the "you" addressed in the first paragraph of "The Cask of Amontillado"? When and why is the story being told?

The most likely explanation is that this story is a translation of an old letter written in Italian or French to a friend and found among some papers after that friend's death. Or it could have been a letter that was never sent and was found among Montresor's papers after his death. The event described could have taken place more than fifty years ago, because the letter itself could be very old. Montresor himself must have been quite old when he wrote this confidential letter (assuming my theory is correct). If he were actually speaking to someone, such as a priest or an old friend, the story would lose some of its verisimilitude, because the story is in English and Montresor is a Frenchman living in Italy. The story reads more like a document than like a spoken narrative. It is similar to Poe's "Manuscript Found in a Bottle" in its fictional format.

Who is the "you" addressed in the first paragraph of "The Cask of Amontillado"? When and why is the story being told?

There's been much speculation on whom Montresor may be addressing, fifty years after the fact. The second sentence reads, "You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat," which seems to imply Montresor is addressing his priest, a person who would well "know his soul," and to whom Montresor would not want to appear like a threatening person, especially since it is likely that--given the time span--he is now confessing his sins on his deathbed. This reading also lends a nice irony to the last sentence of the story,"In pace requiescat!" (Latin for "In peace may he rest.")

Who is the "You" addressed in "The Cask of Amontillado"'s first paragraph?

In the opening paragraph of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” the narrator, Montresor, speaks to an unknown person who is referred to only as “You.” Poe’s intentional ambiguity prevents us from knowing for sure who this person is and how they are connected to Montresor, but we can use textual evidence to draw our own conclusions as to the identity of this unnamed person.

Many literature experts believe the framework of the story to be an end-of-life confession. If we are to agree with this argument, then the unnamed person is likely to be a priest.

We know this person knows Montresor well because Montresor says to them, “You, who so well know the nature of my soul.” This line implies that the person to whom Montresor is speaking knows a great deal about him and his nature, which supports the theory that the person is a priest.

Montresor ends his tale with the Latin translation of “Rest in Peace.” One possible reason for this is Montresor's impending death. If he is, in fact, on his deathbed while he is telling the story of Fortunato’s murder, then it stands to reason that the person he is pouring his heart out and confessing to is a priest or other trusted religious figure.

Montresor is likely trying to clear his guilty conscience before he passes away, and one of the most common ways of doing that is confessing crimes and sins to a priest.

Who is the "you" that Montresor refers to in the first paragraph? Who is the story of "The Cask of Amontillado" being told to?

Because it has been a "half of a century" since Montresor walled up his enemy, Fortunato, in the Montresor family's catacombs, and because he refers to his auditor as someone who "so well know[s] the nature of [his] soul," I tend to believe that he is speaking to a priest while on his deathbed, confessing his sin so that he can be absolved prior to his death and judgment. A priest to whom he's made confession for years would, theoretically, know his soul pretty well. For a couple of reasons, it also seems plausible that he could be receiving his last rites: he must now be an old man, he is likely Catholic (due to the setting in Italy as well as the final line in Latin—In pace requiescat!—because all Catholic sacramental rituals used to be conducted in Latin), and it would make sense that, having kept the secret of his revenge for so long, he might now feel compelled to confess it if he is near death (and cannot be punished, as we know his feelings about the necessity of impunity for successful revenge).

Who is the "you" that Montresor refers to in the first paragraph? Who is the story of "The Cask of Amontillado" being told to?

Although the "you" is never identified, we can assume that the narrator, Montresor, is revealing his ghastly secret many years in the future. Montresor seems to be telling the story to either a confidante,

You, who so well know the nature of my soul...

or a relative. We do know from the final paragraph that Montresor's secret has never been discovered.

For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat!

So, Montresor not only successfully implemented the perfect crime, but he was able to hold his tongue about his misdeed for 50 years. Montresor is an old man when he finally tells his tale, and it could be as a sort of confessional before he dies himself. Though there is no evidence of it in the story, I have always felt as if Montresor was revealing his dreadful secret to another younger family member, passing down his act of revenge to the next generation.