The Cask of Amontillado

"The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe is his most famous short story that falls under the Gothic genre. This story about the narrator entombing his enemy alive in a catacomb under his manor was written in 1846. This is the intense story of Montressor, the narrator, desperately wanting to seek revenge on Fortunado for simply insulting him whilst he is drunk from the wine he has been drinking at the festival near by in the beginning of the story. What makes this story Gothic, is that it contains the romance among the horror that goes on. Montressor has a deep love with killing Fortunado, so much so that he plans the whole crime out to the smallest of details. First, he uses Luchaese, a character not even present, to uses as someone to downplay to Fortunado in wine testing. Montressor lets Fortunado know that he has a bottle of Amontillado and requires someone to tell him if its is good or not. So Fortunado goes instead throwing the plan into action. The romantic aspect is so big that Montressor takes him to his manor and into, what Montressor calls the wine cellar, which turns out to really be a system of catacombs. finally, doing the work himself, Montressor starts to place bricks in layers, entombing Fortunado alive chained to the wall. This love, this romantic aspect that Montressor has for committing this crime is what makes this story a Gothic piece of writing rather than a horror story.