Poe's Stories brief biography of edgar allan poe
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Short Story By Flannery OConnor
| Related Characters Narrator (The Cask of Amontillado) (speaker), Fortunato Related Themes: Page Number 208 Explanation and Analysis In the final story in the book, a narrator prepares to enact his revenge upon Fortunato. The narrator is obsessed with obtaining revenge upon those who humiliate him in someway (though we're never told how, exactly, Fortunato humiliated the narrator, making us wonder if the narrator is just a sadist or a madman. And yet the narrator also makes it clear that he doesn't want revenge to "overtake" him--he just wants to get even with Fortunato and then move on with his life. At the same time, he wants Fortunato to thoroughly realize that the narrator is taking revenge on him --no accidents or sudden deaths. Revenge, in short, is a kind of balance between becoming too obsessed with getting even, and not being obsessed enough. It's odd that the narrator describes revenge as a form of moderation, since there's absolutely nothing moderate about the revenge that the narrator enacts upon Fortunato (he buries the poor guy alive). Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com ©2017 LitCharts LLC v.006 www.LitCharts.com Page 15 The color-coded icons under each analysis entry make it easy to track where the themes occur most prominently throughout the work. Each icon corresponds to one of the themes explained in the Themes section of this LitChart. MANUSCRIPT FOUND INA BOTTLE The narrator of "Manuscript" begins by describing his background. He is from a wealthy family and has a good methodical mind, which leads him to an interest in the German moralists, not from admiration but from pleasure at being able to prove them wrong. In fact, he is so methodical, that he has often been reproached for it. The reason he's telling us this is so that we don’t suspect that the fantastical tale to follow is a symptom of a fanciful imagination and so that it will impress us all the more. The narrator inspires trust by telling us about his background and foreshadows the shocking nature of what’s to follow. Note how many of these details echo Poe’s own personal experience of childhood: the influences of the moralists, and the competing spheres of literature, science and religion. It also seems likely that Poe was accused of having a fanciful imagination in his day. The narrator of "Manuscript" spends many years travelling. One day, he took a trip by boat to the Archipelago Islands, with no better reason than his restless disposition. He describes the ship as a massive vessel, carrying lots of Indian produce, clumsily stowed. The ship sets sail with barely a breeze and goes along fora while without meeting anything. Then, a cloud appears in the sky, remarkable not just for its strange form but because it is the first one they've seen. The narrator watches it turn into a band across the sky and also notices a change in the moon and the sea, and everything becomes very humid. There is no breeze at all. As with many of Poe’s Gothic locations, the surroundings and weather foreshadow what is to come – here they transform subtly at first, but definitely, into an unfamiliar, exotic atmosphere. The humidity, stillness and the strange colors and forms of the clouds threaten some kind of storm. The ship’s course is lonely, and the narrator lives a solitary, nomadic existence – this, added to the expanse of the sea that surrounds him, brings the Gothic setting from its traditional domestic house to the wide world. The captain and crew are relaxed but the narrator of "Manuscript" is worried that a storm is coming and can’t sleep. He goes out on deck at midnight. Suddenly he hears a humming noise, and then the whole ship seems to shake. A wave of foam comes over the ship and soaks it. Slowly and heavily, the ship rights itself, but the narrator is stuck between the stern post and the rudder. He gets himself out and dizzily assesses the situation. The ship is in a whirlpool, overwhelmed on all sides by water. The narrator hears the voice of a Swedish ship mate, calls to him and he pulls himself over to the man. They think that the rest of the crew have been taken overboard and have surely perished. Download 0.58 Mb. Share with your friends:
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