A line in yesterday's discussion caught me:
"I felt guilty for sympathizing with someone who did things
that were immoral."
When I teach Intro / Lit. I always include Poe's "Cask of
Amontillado," then giving them the following assignment
--
"The Cask" is a classic revenge story. Are all monster
stories about revenge? Are all revenge stories about
monsters? Are you claustrophobic? Is the fear of being buried
alive universal? The crime novelist Elmore Leonard says that
plot is a promise that something will happen. Your instructor
suggests that plot works like a man falling down a flight of
stairs. Does this story work in those ways? Is the outcome of
the story ever in doubt? If true, why do we keep reading? Can
"irony" be defined as "intellectual sarcasm"?
Based on your answers to the above questions, answer the
following questions to the best of your ability: What exactly
did Fortunado do to deserve such a fate? What exactly is his
"real crime?" How should the average reader react to that
last paragraph? Who is the narrator talking to? What do you
think is an unreliable narrator? How does the Poe story use
this literary technique? What does using it mean to
you?
And 90% of the students don't get it: because he is the only
narrator, they sympathize with Montressor. Fortunado MUST
HAVE REALLY DESERVED TO BE WALLED UP, else why would anybody
wall the guy up?
I collect their papers, then howl, "I want you on my jury!!!
You just sided with a psychopath."
At which point, each one gets an epiphany. Oops.
My two cents.
Fred Zackel Cocaine & Blue Eyes Point Blank Press
The Latin phrase "alius ibi," means "elsewhere," as in the
English word
"alibi." The Latin word "alius" itself means "at another
time," as in the English word "alias."
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