The Burial of Ambivalence in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado

Yıl 2022, Cilt: 32 Sayı: 1, 229 - 248, 23.05.2022

Merve Günday Nurten Birlik

https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2021-937582

Öz

In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The Cask of Amontillado, Fortunato’s captivity by Montresor in the middle of a carnival with no explanation amazes readers and leaves many unanswered questions in readers’ minds, thereby leading to reductionist interpretations of the story. Each of these readings leaves some elements in the story in ambiguity, failing to integrate them into a totalizing interpretation of the story. The reading of the story in relation to the Freudian concept of the uncanny, however, helps us to understand the motive behind the murder, by revealing the unconscious mechanisms at work. In light of this, this study argues that as a murder story involving the cruel death of a helpless victim on the surface level, The Cask of Amontillado is based on what is left unsaid in the narrative. It arouses the sense of the uncanny, as what Montresor says on the conscious level in the guise of the heimlich turns out to be, on the unconscious level, actually a phantasy of acting out the repressed wishes that he had pushed back to the darkest recesses of his psyche because of their disturbing threat to his egotistical unity.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Edgar Allan Poe, The Cask of Amontillado, Sigmund Freud, the uncanny, psychoanalytical criticism

Kaynakça

• Bakhtin, M. (1984). Rabelais and His World. (Helene Iswolsky, Trans.). Bloomington: Indiana UP. google scholar
• Baraban, E. V. (2004). The Motive for Murder in ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ by Edgar Allan Poe. Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literatüre, 58(2), 47-62. google scholar
• Bennett, Z. Z. E. (2011). Killing the Aristocrats: The Mask, the Cask, and Poe’s Ethics of S & M. The Edgar Allan Poe Review, 12(1), 42-58. google scholar
• Benton, R. P. (1991). Poe’s ‘The Cask’ and ‘The White Webwork’ Which Gleams. Studies in Short Fiction, 28(2), 183195. google scholar
• Bradley, J. (2008). Character Doubles and Barrier Imagery in Poe’s Work. The Edgar Allan Poe Review, 9(2), 55-66. google scholar
• Dülmen, R. v. (1990). Rituals of Execution in Early Modern Germany. In Theatre of Horror: Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Germany, (pp. 12-131). Trans. Elisabeth Neu. Cambridge: Polity Press. google scholar
• Engel, L. W. (1983). Victim and Victimizer: Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado.’ Interpretations, 15(1), 26-30. google scholar
• Foy, R. R. and Lambo, W. E. (2015). Freemasonry, the Brethren and the Twists of Edgar Allan Poe in ‘The Cask of Amontillado,’ The Explicator, 73(4), 252-256. google scholar
• Freud, S. (2001). The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 20: An Autobiographical Study, Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety, Lay Analysis and Other Works. (James Strachey, Trans.). London: Vintage. google scholar
• Freud, S. (2001). The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 17: An Infantile Neurosis and Other Works. (James Strachey, Trans.). London: Vintage. google scholar
• Freud, S. (2001). The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 19: The Ego and the Id and Other Works. (James Strachey, Trans.). London: Vintage. google scholar
• Freud, S. (2001). The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 4: The Interpretation of Dreams. (James Strachey, Trans.). London: Vintage. google scholar
• Freud, S. (2001). The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 5: The Interpretation of Dreams. (James Strachey, Trans.) London: Vintage. google scholar
• Freud, S. (2003). The Uncanny. In The Uncanny, (pp. 121-162). Trans. Davis McLintock. London: Penguin. google scholar
• Gargano, J. W. (1967). ‘The Cask of Amontillado’: A Masquerade of Motive and Identity. Studies in Short Fiction, 4(2), 119-26. google scholar
• Kishel, J. F. (1982). Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado.’ The Explicator, 41(1), 30. google scholar
• Platizky, R. (1999). Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado.’ The Explicator, 57(4), 206-209. google scholar
• Poe, Edgar Allan. (2011). The Cask of Amontillado. In Tales of Mystery and Imagination (pp. 181-188). London: Collins Classics. google scholar
• Scott J. St., G. (2004). Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado.’ The Explicator, 62(2), 85-88. google scholar
• Sova, D B. (2007). Critical Companion to Edgar Allan Poe: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts on File. google scholar
• Stepp, W. (1976). The Ironic Double in Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado.’ Studies in Short Fiction, 13(4), 447-453. google scholar
• White, P. (1989). ‘The Cask of Amontillado’: A Case for Defense. Studies in Short Fiction, 26(4), 550-555. google scholar