The setting essay will be a traditional five-paragraph essay with the following structure:

• an introductory paragraph with a thesis statement
• three body paragraphs that discuss various aspects of the setting of the selected short story
• a concluding paragraph

For this setting essay, you are to select one of the stories we read over the past two weeks in which historical, physical, or geographical settings shape characters and events. You can choose to write about any one of those elements of the setting or a combination of the elements. For example, the essay can approach simply the historical significance of the setting in all three body paragraphs or a combination of the elements such as two body paragraphs on the geographical elements of the setting and one on the physical. You can focus on simply one area or “mix and match” the three areas (historical, geographical, and physical) as you see fit.

The Cask of Amontillado

Short story, 1846

Edgar Allan Poe

American Writer ( 1809 – 1849 )

Modern Short Stories. Ed. Margaret Asmun. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1929. p1. From LitFinder.

Text:

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 definitively 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.

It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation.

He had a weak point — this Fortunato — although in other regards he was a man to be respected and even feared. He prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine. Few Italians have the true virtuoso spirit. For the most part their enthusiasm is adopted to suit the time and opportunity — to practise imposture upon the British and Austrian millionaires. In painting and gemmary Fortunato, like his countrymen, was a quack — but in the matter of old wines he was sincere. In this respect I did not differ from him materially; I was skilful in the Italian vintages myself, and bought largely whenever I could.

It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells. I was so pleased to see him that I thought I should never have done wringing his hand.

I said to him — “My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day! But I have received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts.”

“How?”

said he. “Amontillado? A pipe? Impossible! And in the middle of the carnival!”

“I have my doubts,” I replied; “and I was silly enough to pay the full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter. You were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain.”

“Amontillado!”

“I have my doubts.”

“Amontillado!”

“And I must satisfy them.”

“Amontillado!”

“As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchesi. If any one has a critical turn, it is he. He will tell me –“

“Luchesi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry.”

“And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for your own.”

“Come, let us go.”

“Whither?”

“To your vaults.”

“My friend, no; I will not impose upon your good nature. I perceive you have an engagement. Luchesi –“

“I have no engagement; — come.”

“My friend, no. It is not the engagement, but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted. The vaults are insufferably damp. They are encrusted with nitre.”

“Let us go, nevertheless. The cold is merely nothing. Amontillado! You have been imposed upon. And as for Luchesi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado.”

Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm. Putting on a mask of black silk, and drawing a roquelaire closely about my person, I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo.

There were no attendants at home; they had absconded to make merry in honor of the time. I had told them that I should not return until the morning, and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to insure their immediate disappearance, one and all, as soon as my back was turned.

I took from their sconces two flambeaux, and giving one to Fortunato, bowed him through several suites of rooms to the archway that led into the vaults. I passed down a long and winding staircase, requesting him to be cautious as he followed. We came at length to the foot of the descent, and stood together on the damp ground of the catacombs of the Montresors.

The gait of my friend was unsteady, and the bells upon his cap jingled as he strode.

“The pipe,” said he.

“It is farther on,” said I; “but observe the white web-work which gleams from these cavern walls.”

He turned towards me, and looked into my eyes with two filmy orbs that distilled the rheum of intoxication.

“Nitre?” he asked, at length.

“Nitre,” I replied. “How long have you had that cough?”

“Ugh! ugh! ugh! — ugh! ugh! ugh! — ugh! ugh! ugh! — ugh! ugh! ugh! — ugh! ugh! ugh!”

My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes.

“It is nothing,” he said, at last.

“Come,” I said, with decision, “we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible. Besides, there is Luchesi –“

“Enough,” he said; “the cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough.”

“True — true,” I replied; “and, indeed, I had no intention of alarming you unnecessarily — but you should use all proper caution. A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps.”

Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a long row of its fellows that lay upon the mould.

“Drink,” I said, presenting him the wine.

He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me familiarly, while his bells jingled.

“I drink,” he said, “to the buried that repose around us.”

“And I to your long life.”

He again took my arm, and we proceeded.

“These vaults,” he said, “are extensive.”

“The Montresors,” I replied, “were a great and numerous family.”

“I forget your arms.”

“A huge human foot d’or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel.”

“And the motto?”

“Nemo me impune lacessit.”

“Good!” he said.

The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled. My own fancy grew warm with the Medoc. We had passed through walls of piled bones, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost recesses of the catacombs. I paused again, and this time I made bold to seize Fortunato by an arm above the elbow.

“The nitre!” I said; “see, it increases. It hangs like moss upon the vaults. We are below the river’s bed. The drops of moisture trickle among the bones. Come, we will go back ere it is too late. Your cough –“

“It is nothing,” he said; “let us go on. But first, another draught of the Medoc.”

I broke and reached him a flacon of De Grave. He emptied it at a breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He laughed and threw the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not understand.

I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the movement — a grotesque one.

“You do not comprehend?” he said.

“Not I,” I replied.

“Then you are not of the brotherhood.”

“How?”

“You are not of the masons.”

“Yes, yes,” I said, “yes, yes.”

“You? Impossible! A mason?”

“A mason,” I replied.

“A sign,” he said.

“It is this,” I answered, producing a trowel from beneath the folds of my roquelaire.

“You jest,” he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. “But let us proceed to the Amontillado.”

“Be it so,” I said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak, and again offering him my arm. He leaned upon it heavily. We continued our route in search of the Amontillado. We passed through a range of low arches, descended, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame.

At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another less spacious. Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris. Three sides of this interior crypt were still ornamented in this manner. From the fourth the bones had been thrown down, and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a mound of some size. Within the wall thus exposed by the displacing of the bones, we perceived a still interior recess, in depth about four feet, in width three, in height six or seven. It seemed to have been constructed for no especial use within itself, but formed merely the interval between two of the colossal supports of the roof of the catacombs, and was backed by one of their circumscribing walls of solid granite.

It was in vain that Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch, endeavored to pry into the depth of the recess. Its termination the feeble light did not enable us to see.

“Proceed,” I said; “herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchesi —-“

“He is an ignoramus,” interrupted my friend, as he stepped unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his heels. In an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche, and finding his progress arrested by the rock, stood stupidly bewildered. A moment more and I had fettered him to the granite. In its surface were two iron staples, distant from each other about two feet, horizontally. From one of these depended a short chain, from the other a padlock. Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too much astounded to resist. Withdrawing the key I stepped back from the recess.

“Pass your hand,” I said, “over the wall; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed it is very damp. Once more let me implore you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. But I must first render you all the little attentions in my power.”

“The Amontillado!” ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered from his astonishment.

“True,” I replied; “the Amontillado.”

As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones of which I have before spoken. Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered a quantity of building stone and mortar. With these materials and with the aid of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche.

I had scarcely laid the first tier of the masonry when I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a great measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning cry from the depth of the recess. It was not the cry of a drunken man. There was then a long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, and the third, and the fourth; and then I heard the furious vibrations of the chain. The noise lasted for several minutes, during which, that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labors and sat down upon the bones. When at last the clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel, and finished without interruption the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh tier. The wall was now nearly upon a level with my breast. I again paused, and holding the flambeaux over the mason-work, threw a few feeble rays upon the figure within.

A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back. For a brief moment I hesitated — I trembled. Unsheathing my rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess: but the thought of an instant reassured me. I placed my hand upon the solid fabric of the catacombs, and felt satisfied. I reapproached the wall. I replied to the yells of him who clamored. I re-echoed — I aided — I surpassed them in volume and in strength. I did this, and the clamorer grew still.

It was now midnight, and my task was drawing to a close. I had completed the eighth, the ninth, and the tenth tier. I had finished a portion of the last and the eleventh; there remained but a single stone to be fitted and plastered in. I struggled with its weight; I placed it partially in its destined position. But now there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon my head. It was succeeded by a sad voice, which I had difficulty in recognising as that of the noble Fortunato. The voice said —

“Ha! ha! ha! — he! he! — a very good joke indeed — an excellent jest. We will have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo — he! he! he! — over our wine — he! he! he!”

“The Amontillado!” I said.

“He! he! he! — he! he! he! — yes, the Amontillado. But is it not getting late? Will not they be awaiting us at the palazzo, the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone.”

“Yes,” I said, “let us be gone.”

“For the love of God, Montresor!”

“Yes,” I said, “for the love of God!”

But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud —

“Fortunato!”

No answer. I called again —

“Fortunato!”

No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick — on account of the dampness of the catacombs. I hastened to make an end of my labor. I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. 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!

Source Citation   (MLA 8th Edition)

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Cask of Amontillado.” Modern Short Stories, edited by Margaret Asmun, The Macmillan Company, 1929, p. 1. LitFinder, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/LTF0000541703WK/GLS?u=avlr&sid=GLS&xid=98afb2b6. Accessed 11 Feb. 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|LTF0000541703WK

Overview: “The Cask of Amontillado”

Short story, 1846

American Writer ( 1809 – 1849 )

Characters in 19th-Century Literature. Ed. Kelly King Howes. Detroit: Gale, 1993. From Literature Resource Center.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1993 Gale Research, COPYRIGHT 2007 Gale

Full Text: 

Plot

The story is told by an Italian aristocrat named Montresor, who claims he bore a thousand injuries from his fellow nobleman Fortunato, but that he finally received an unforgivable insult that had to be avenged. He waits until the carnival season, when the streets are disorderly with merrymaking, to pursue the perfect revenge. Meeting Fortunato, dressed in the brightly colored and bell-trimmed costume of a jester, he informs him that he has just purchased a quantity of Amontillado wine. He is not sure of the wine’s authenticity, however, and admits that he should have asked Fortunato’s advice before buying it (Fortunato is a wine connoisseur and takes inflated pride in his skill). Since Fortunato is busy, Montresor continues, he will ask another man, Luchesi, to evaluate the wine. This provokes his companion’s ire, and Fortunato insists on sampling the Amontillado. He follows Montresor into the catacombs (an underground system of burial vaults) beneath his house, where the bones of his ancestors vie with his wine casks for space. The two proceed deeper and deeper into the gloomy catacombs, and Montresor repeatedly asks his friend if he would like to turn around, while he offers him swigs of wine. Finally they reach a particular alcove, and when Fortunato steps uncertainly into it, Montresor quickly chains him to iron staples on the wall. He ignores his victim’s terrified wails—and even, at one point, matches them with mad screams of his own—and builds a wall of stone and mortar to seal off the recess. Eventually he hears Fortunato begin to laugh grimly, thinking Montresor is playing a practical joke on him. But Montresor puts the last stone in place. Fifty years later, he reports, the wall is still standing.

Characters

“The Cask of Amontillado” is one of the best-known short stories by Poe, considered a master of the genre and a major influence on its development. Although the tale employs the stereotypically gothic setting of dreary, dungeonlike catacombs lined with skeletons, it transcends the boundaries of gothic fiction with its psychological focus. The story also illustrates Poe’s belief in “art for art’s sake”; that is, a work of fiction need not contain a moral message but may derive value simply by being well-crafted and effective.

Like many of Poe’s short stories, this one features a first-person narrator who, in relating his experiences, gives the reader many clues to his psychological makeup. Montresor is an Italian aristocrat who declares he has endured a thousand injuries from his fellow nobleman, Fortunato, but a recent insult will not go unavenged. Little else is revealed about Montresor’s past or current circumstances, though he must have been fairly young when it took place (since fifty years pass before he relates it). His voice is intelligent, ironic (sometimes to the point of a horrible jocosity), and burning with a cold passion. Montresor’s maniacal pride and sadomasochistic tendencies are gradually more apparent, and finally his gruesome intention becomes clear. He makes the reader his confidante, and he assumes the reader appreciates and approves of his clever act; thus Montresor explains how he planned and executed his perfect crime. He waits for a day when the city is preoccupied with the gay pursuits of carnival, ensnares his victim with an appeal to his vanity, and leads him deep into the catacombs while pretending concern that the dampness of the underground passages will adversely effect Fortunato’s health. Reaching the fatal alcove, he quickly binds his victim with chains and begins constructing the wall that will trap him there for eternity. Immune to Fortunato’s terrified screams, he even matches those wails himself at one point and brandishes his sword; such bizarre behavior evidences his mental instability. Montresor has been labeled a rationalist with no concern for the moral implications of his behavior; a monomaniac who, like the protagonists created by such authors as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, has allowed his hatred to devour his soul and therefore his humanity; and as another example of the abnormal, neurotic personalities frequently found in Poe’s works. In any case, the end of the story reveals not only that his crime was never detected, but that he has remained obsessed with it for fifty years.

Through Montresor’s victim, the aristocratic Fortunato, Poe plays out the theme of premature burial that he uses with terrifying effect elsewhere in his fiction and that seems to have been a particularly dreadful concept for him. Little is learned about Fortunato or what he might have done to provoke Montresor’s ire. Although his portrayal is rather negative—he is drunk when he meets his murderer and seems vain and arrogant—there is little evidence that he deserves his gruesome fate. He does not even seem aware that he has offended Montresor. Montresor claims that Fortunato is much respected and feared, but that his one weakness is his excessive pride in his wine connoisseurship; it is this weakness that Montresor brilliantly exploits to lure him into a trap. Both Fortunato’s name and his ludicrous jester costume, the bells of which jingle grotesquely in the catacombs, are ironic touches that help to intensify the story’s effect. The period in which he waits for Montresor to finish building the wall concentrates the terror and claustrophobia of Fortunato’s approaching death. His final, pathetic attempt to ascribe Montresor’s actions to a practical joke implies that there is a Lady Fortunato and appreciative friends waiting for him at his palazzo.

FURTHER READINGS ABOUT THE AUTHOR
· Bloom, Harold, ed. Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Chelsea House, 1985.
· Carlson, Eric W., ed. The Recognition of Edgar Allan Poe: Selected Criticism since 1829. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1970.
· Galloway, David, ed. Introduction to The Other Poe: Comedies and Satires by Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Penguin Books, 1983.
· Kesterton, David B., ed. Critics on Poe. Coral Gables, Fla.: University of Miami Press, 1973.
· Knapp, Bettina L. Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1984.
· Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Vol. 1,16. Detroit: Gale.
· Short Story Criticism, Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale.
· Symons, Julian. The Tell-Tale Heart: The Life and Works of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Harper & Row, 1978.

Source Citation   (MLA 8th Edition)
“Overview: “The Cask of Amontillado”.” Characters in 19th-Century Literature, edited by Kelly King Howes, Gale, 1993. Literature Resource Center, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/H1430000292/GLS?u=avlr&sid=GLS&xid=6764d295. Accessed 11 Feb. 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|H1430000292

Chapter15 “Setting” – textbook excerpt

The setting of a work of fiction establishes its historical, geographical, and physical context.
Where a work is set—on a tropical island, in a dungeon, at a crowded party, in the woods—
influences our reactions to the story’s events and characters. When a work takes place—
during the French Revolution, during the Vietnam War, today, or in the future—is equally
important. Setting, however, is more than just the approximate time and place in which a
work is set; setting also encompasses a wide variety of other elements.

Clearly, setting is more important in some works than in others. In some stories, no
particular time or place is specified or even suggested, perhaps because the writer does not
consider a specific setting to be important or because the writer wishes the story’s events
to seem timeless and universal. In other stories, a writer may provide only minimal
information about setting, telling readers little more than where and when the action takes
place. In many cases, however, a particular setting is vital to the story, perhaps influencing
characters’ feelings or behavior, as it does in the stories in this chapter.

Sometimes a story’s central conflict is between the protagonist and the setting—for
example, Alice in Wonderland, a Northerner in the South, an unsophisticated American
tourist in an old European city, a sane person in a psychiatric hospital, a moral person in a
corrupt environment, an immigrant in a new world, or a city dweller in the country. Such a
conflict may drive the story’s plot and also help define the characters. A conflict between
events and setting—for example, the arrival of mysterious stranger in a typical suburban
neighborhood, the intrusion of modern social ideas into an old-fashioned world, or the
intrusion of a brutal murder into a peaceful village—can also enrich a story.

Setting can be analyzed in a variety of ways. Readers can examine the historical,
geographical, or physical settings of a story.

• HISTORICAL
o A particular historical period, and the events and customs associated with it,

can be important to your understanding of a story; therefore, some
knowledge of the period in which a story is set may be useful (or even
essential) for readers. The historical setting establishes a story’s social,
cultural, economic, and political environment. Consider, for example, the
cultural significance of Maggie’s and Dee’s different views regarding family
heirlooms in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” or the social significance of the
treatment of women in the time period in respect to the treatment of the
narrator and her emotional state in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow
Wallpaper.”

• GEOGRAPHICAL
o In addition to knowing when a work takes place, readers need to know

where it takes place. Knowing whether a story is set in the United States, in
Europe, or in a developing nation can help to explain anything from why
language and customs are unfamiliar to us to why characters act in ways we
find surprising or hold beliefs that are alien to us. Even in stories set in the
United States, regional differences may account for differences in plot
development and characters’ motivation.

• PHYSICAL
o Physical setting can influence a story’s mood as well as its development. For

example, time of day can be important. The gruesome murder described in
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” (p. 328) takes place in an
appropriate setting: not just underground but in the darkness of night.

o Whether a story is set primarily indoors or out-of-doors may also be
significant: characters may be physically constrained by a closed-in setting or
liberated by an expansive landscape. Some interior settings may be
psychologically limiting. For instance, the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper”
feels suffocated by her room, whose ugly wallpaper comes to haunt her. In
many of Poe’s stories, the central character is trapped, physically or
psychologically, in a confined, suffocating space. Some exterior settings like
the tough terrain pose obstacles for a character such as in Eudora Welty’s “A
Worn Path.”

o The various physical attributes of setting including elements such as time of
day, weather, or indoor/outdoor placement of the action combine to create a
story’s atmosphere or mood.

Checklist for Writing about Setting

• Is the setting specified or unspecified? Is it fully described or only suggested?
• Is setting just background, or is it a key force in the story?
• Are any characters in conflict with their environment?
• How does the setting influence the story’s plot? Does it cause characters to act?
• In what time period does the story take place? How can you tell? What about social,

political, or economic situations or events of the historical period might influence
the story?

• In what geographical location is the story set? Is this location important to the
story?

• At what time of day is the story set? Is the time important to the development of the
story

• Is the story set primarily indoors or out-of-doors? What role does this aspect of the
setting play in the story?

• What role do weather conditions play in the story?
• What kind of atmosphere or mood does the physical setting create?
• How does the story’s atmosphere influence the characters? Does it affect (or reflect)

their emotional state? Does it help explain their motivation?

The Setting Essay

The setting essay will be a traditional five-paragraph essay with an introductory paragraph
with a thesis statement, three body paragraphs that discuss various aspects of the setting of
the short story, and a concluding paragraph. For this setting essay, you are to select a story
in which historical, physical, or geographical settings shape characters and events. You can
choose to write about any one of those elements of the setting or a combination of the
elements. For example, the essay can approach simply the historical significance of the
setting in all three body paragraphs or a combination of the elements such as two body
paragraphs on the geographical elements of the setting and one on the physical. You can
focus on simply one area or “mix and match” the three areas (historical, geographical, and
physical) as you see fit.