”(152), and “the bones had been thrown down, and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a mound of some size”(152). This conveys to the reader that the vaults are not a pleasant place to be, and that many others have died there as well. The climax of the story is when Montresor chains Fortunato to the wall and begins bricking him into the niche. This is the point in the story that Montresor gets revenge on Fortunato. The reader may ask himself if Montresor really succeeded in getting revenge. Montresor never told Fortunato why he was killing him. All Montresor needed to do was simply state his reason for the murder after he had Fortunato chained. “Montresor, of course, would have enjoyed hearing his successful friend reduced to the beggary” (Kishel 30) which would have made his revenge much better. The only thing that Fortunato knows is that Montresor has gotten the best of him and that his fortune has run out. Montresor states, “For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat! (Let him rest in peace)”(153). Montresor could be wishing his guilt and regret away with this statement. If this is the case, Montresor really has not gotten revenge, because he has had to live for half of a century with the guilt and regret that this murder has caused him. Regret is the price that Montresor has paid for killing his friend. This is a horrifying story, not because of what the reader sees with the outward eye but what the reader sees with the inward eye of imagination. The story never exactly tells Redd 8 what Montresor was thinking which leaves the reader to wonder. The story never tells how Fortunato copes with the fact that he is being murdered, or how he deals with being chained up waiting on death to come and take him. A person’s imagination is a wild thing. Poe is trying to “make us see the abyss, the infinity, the chaos inside ourselves into whic...
