fact that Montresor is telling the story himself. The means in which Montresor expresses himself expose his insecurities. When he no longer hears Fortunato crying out, he says, "there was a long obstinate silence" (156). The personification of the silence by the use of the word “‘obstinate” projects the intent on Fortunato, implying that Fortunato is purposely depriving Montresor of satisfaction. But actually, "Montresor seeks to escape from his own limitations by imagining them as imposed by outside force" (Stepp 61). The force is a surrogate of the self. Every word goes to characterize the narrator, Montresor, and adds to the irony of the story. Fifty years later he is confessing the story and taking particular delight in his cleverness, but is unaware he is revealing a desperate human emptiness. James Gargano makes a general statement about Poe’s narrators that "applies perfectly to The Cask of Amontillado; he says, "Poe assuredly knows what the narrator never suspects and what, by the controlled conditions of the tale, he is not meant to suspect--that the narrator is a victim of his own self-torturing obsessions" (166). In this way, Montresor is a classic Poe character. Poe's use of symbolism gives the reader the opportunity to see the conflict between Montresor's inner self and his outer being. The deep, dark catacombs below the surface represent the dark self that lies beneath Montresor's surface. In attempting to bury Fortunato alive, Montresor is actually attempting to bury his inner self. He is attempting to destroy a primal evil that has driven him to revenge. On the surface, Montresor seems to have the appearance of a serious and intelligent man, but his alter ego that is symbolically demonstrated through Fortunato, wears the cap and bells of a jester. Walter Stepp notes that there is "perfect symmetry of opposition between Montresor and Fortunato" and that "Montresor had an obsessional wish to demonst...
