Malicious Vengeance: The Ghastly Acts of Murder Essay examples -- essa

Malicious Vengeance: The Ghastly Acts of Murder   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Both Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, â€Å"The Cast of Amontillado,† and Louise Erdrich’s essay, â€Å"Fleur,† have prominent themes about revenge, Poe focused on the act of Revenge, whereas Erdrich focused more on the events leading up to the horrific act.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Poe’s short story of revenge discusses how the main character, Montresor, abuses the victim’s trust to ultimately kill him. The story starts out with the victim, Fortunato, and the avenger, Montresor, joking and drinking merrily while walking through a carnival together. Then, Montresor lies to Fortunato about having a rare wine, in a hidden location, that he would love to share with him. Fortunato, an avid wine connoisseur, is pleased to follow him due to his drunkenness, and also for the chance to taste such an exquisite wine.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  By this time, Fortunato is so drunk and trusting of Montresor that he blindly follows Montresor deep into the back of a catacomb. During their journey Montresor gives Fortunato plenty of chances to turn around; Montresor tells his victim at one point â€Å"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.† (Poe 1316) Upon reaching the end of the cavern, Montresor does not explain himself, and does not gift his enemy with a bottle of wine, but instead sentences him to a slow and horrific death. In his short story, Poe describes the act of revenge almost as a dark insanity that plagues the main character. Montresor’s madness is shown when he goes from friend to foe. He gives the impression that he is worried about Fortunato’s health at first, but towards the end takes satisfaction in hearing the cries of his helpless victim. Montresor even told the listeners of his story â€Å"I ceased my labors and sat down upon the bones. When at last the clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel, and finished without interruption.† (Poe 1318) Poe views the act of vengeance as a solemn, sinister, and deranged work of hatred. I hold this to be true because he portrays an image where the murderous avenger can look into the victim’s eyes while burying him alive behind a wall of brick and mortar. Montresor can also continuously hear â€Å"the furious vibrations of the chain.† (Poe 1318) After finally... ...ble by any means. I believe that nature will act upon the â€Å"eye for an eye† belief by its self without me interfering. I also think that if I take my revenge on a person, or group of people, I will also suffer bad karma from nature. I believe that revenge comes from hatred, and living with an excess of hatred throws off one’s balance in life, like the ying-yang idea. Even though I disagree with acts of revenge, I still battle with those undesirable thought. Just today, November 2, 2004, my car was stolen while in Reading class, and I would love to meet the people that stole it. I have thoughts racing through my head about how much I would enjoy making that person, or group of people suffer. I am so angry; I even have thoughts of inflicting pain to anyone that just looks at me wrong. Even though I am very angry about what this person has done to me, I would not do anything outside of my moral and ethical point-of-view to that particular person. Poe’s and Erdrich’s story styles were very different, even though both stories accomplished the same goal of showing the act of murderous revenge. I enjoyed Poe’s story of horror much more then the tame story of revenge that Erdrich showed.