Montresor and Hop-Frog Strike Back: Poe’s Never-Ending
Poetics of Revenge
Marta Miquel-Baldellou
Abstract
Edgar Allan Poe’s two later narratives ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ (1846) and
‘Hop-Frog’ (1849) can be interpreted as parallel texts which illustrate the
circularity of Poe’s poetics of revenge. In both tales, Montresor and HopFrog as avenging figures adopt a Socratic approach whereby they conceal
their real intentions. Both characters display an analytical methodology to
detect their nemesis’ special vulnerability. Likewise, their strategy for
revenge requires a trap into which the victim must fall willingly so as to
discover eventually he has trapped himself. Nonetheless, this apparent sense
of retribution is equivocal. Despite his flawless execution, Montresor’s
anxiety and guilt are ultimately betrayed by his confessional recollections
half a century later, just like the happily-ever-after ending in ‘Hop-Frog’
seems to underline Poe’s acknowledgement that only in a purely imaginary
world can one silence his own enemy. A parallelism is also established
between victim and avenger as the victim of revenge invariably reflects the
self the avenger seeks to destroy. It is the aim of this paper to interpret both
tales as a unique narrative which displays Poe’s circular poetics of neverending revenge.
Key Words: Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, ‘Hop-Frog’,
poetics of revenge, intertextuality, memory, circularity, confession, guilt, the
double.
*****
1.
Introduction
Having published several tales underscoring the nature of retribution
and ongoing enmity, Poe consolidated the poetics of revenge in his later tale
‘The Cask of Amontillado’ (1846), amalgamating and perfecting many of the
characteristics he had already disseminated in previous tales of revenge such
as ‘Metzengerstein’, ‘William Wilson’ or ‘The Imp of the Perverse’.
Likewise, ‘Hop-Frog’ (1849), a less explored piece, was Poe’s last tale of
revenge, published only some months before his death and including many
features of the poetics of revenge he had already presented in ‘The Cask of
Amontillado’. Both tales, including many intertextual links that are repeated
and reversed, can be interpreted as parallel texts illustrating Poe’s poetics of
revenge and the never-ending quality of retribution. Taking these two tales as
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Montresor and Hop-Frog Strike Back: Poe’s Never-Ending Poetics of
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a point of departure, this paper aims at decoding Poe’s poetics of revenge,
identifying intertextual links between these two narratives, and underlining
the circularity of vengeance as illustrated in these texts.
Poe’s poetics of revenge
‘The Cask of Amontillado’ has openly been classified as a tale of
revenge, but it is also a tale of confession. Montresor, being unable to forget
his crime after fifty years, unfolds the testimony of his wicked deed,
mentally enacting and voicing each scene once more. His confession
underlines both his vanity for what he presumes to be a perfect crime, as well
as foreshadows his necessity to recall and retell his deed half a century later.
As Fisher contends, once Montresor has repressed ‘the ‘fortunate’ part of his
being, he becomes fated never to forget that event.’1 Montresor thus
exemplifies two recurring themes in Poe’s fiction: analysis and obsession.
Even if he personifies one of Poe’s neurotic narrators, his testimony of a
carefully-projected crime endows him with the qualities of an analyst. As
Magistrale asserts, Montresor is coolly rational on the surface, but truly
raging inside.2 His painstaking confession responds to his analytical quality,
while his obsessive nature results in accomplishing his projected reprisal.
Vengeance and confession, obsession and analysis thus come hand in hand,
just as the public acknowledgement of retribution seems necessarily
entangled in the act of revenge.
Montresor’s analytical qualities are shown when he theorises about
the nature of ideal revenge despite his frenzied condition:
2.
I must not only punish but punish with impunity. A wrong is
unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is
equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt
as such to him who has done the wrong.3
According to Gerald Kennedy, revenge must accomplish a triple satisfaction:
first, punish the wrongdoer; second, insure the avenger against any
subsequent injury; and third, demonstrate his superior intellect to the
adversary.4 Through the act of revenge, the avenger must preclude any
possibility of response, while the victim must recognise the deed as an act of
retribution.
Having theorised about the nature of revenge, the avenger’s strategy
lies in analysing the rival to discover his special vulnerability. As a result of
a deliberate identification with his counterpart, Montresor discovers
Fortunato’s vanity lies in his expertise in wine, which Montresor also seems
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to share as he admits ‘I was skilful in the Italian vintages myself.’5 After all,
both characters present many points in common: their names, Montresor and
Fortunato, make explicit reference to treasure and fortune; both are fond of
wine, and both are in disguise due to the carnival festivities. Consequently, a
special and significant kind of parallelism is established between victim and
avenger so that the latter projects and externalises his hatred, which is
ultimately personified by the victim, the doppelganger, his own double.
Following De Quincey, Poe also contemplated an aesthetics of
murder in which the perfect crime becomes the ideal realisation of a mental
construct. To commit the perfect crime is to effect a total disassociation of
the self from its double and destroy that part of the self that suffers mortal
anxiety. Nonetheless, the act of violence usually follows its way back to the
perpetrator and cannot eliminate the connection between the murderer and
his victim, which always remains inscribed in the memory of the avenger
because of the bond of mortality it recalls. 6
3.
Ironic doubleness
Montresor also relies on ironic doubleness, a Socratic approach,
adopting a manner which is precisely the opposite of his real intentions, thus
confessing: ‘It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given
Fortunato cause to doubt my good will.’7 Montresor cunningly weaves a trap
to ensnare Fortunato, urging him to taste his Amontillado, but constantly
repeating he should have asked Luchresi instead. Montresor’s strategy of
revenge requires a trap, in which the victim must fall by choice, believing he
is proving his own talent and genius even if ultimately paving the ground for
his own destruction. Following Poe’s poetics of revenge, the snare should
involve an element of play, since the victim must have a choice. Fortunato
must not be overtly coerced, as he should eventually know he has trapped
himself. The victim’s awareness of his inability to extricate himself from the
trap brings about the ascendancy of the avenger. Finally, the avenger silences
the enemy denying any sort of retaliation, as the victim is well aware there is
no one else to blame but himself for his misfortune.
After all, Fortunato is punished for his inability to read the signs
Montresor has carefully presented. It is due to his ineptitude to detect
Montresor’s clues that Fortunato meets his ‘unfortunate’ end. All through
their descent into his family’s vaults, Montresor wears a black mask,
resembling an executioner, Fortunato is conducted to a crypt, and so as to
convince Fortunato he is a mason, Montresor shows his trowel, which
anticipates Fortunato’s end. Likewise, Montresor’s display of his family’s
coat of arms and its motto, nemo me impune lacessit (no one offends me with
impunity), can be interpreted as an explicit affront to Fortunato. In any case,
dressed as a jester, Fortunato remains mystified all the way through, despite
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Montresor’s recurrent insinuations during their descent into the vaults. The
downward path to the crypt reflects both Montresor’s ancestry and the
decline of his noble origins, as well as his sinful fall into the caverns of his
own unconsciousness. Montresor methodically weaves his trap through the
use of language, in a sort of verbal duel, which reaches its climax when
Fortunato challenges him to prove he is mason. This particular episode will
reverberate at the end of the tale when Fortunato hopelessly asks for mercy
and the love of God.
4.
The victim, myself
In order to prepare for revenge, Montresor observes Fortunato to
emulate him and anticipate his movements, so that Montresor’s strategy
inevitably entails some sort of identification with his rival. The antagonism
between both opponents lies in their mutual resemblance as well as their
reciprocal fear. Thus, the desire for revenge is articulated along with
ontological fear, just like violence is projected as a reification of displaced
anxiety.
René Girard pointed at a mimetic desire, a rivalry, a mutuality of
desire which enforces a perverse bonding. All desire is a desire to be, that is
to say, the dream of a fullness attributed to the mediator, who separates the
subject from the object, thus the desire for a certain object always brings
about the desire of another person for this same object. Consequently, each
character develops an obsessive awareness of the ‘other’, an intimate
identification. They anticipate each other’s strategies and assume their nature,
so that the distinction between self and other becomes blurred. The rival
becomes linked to the attributes of the self we seek to deny, so in aiming to
destroy our rival we attempt to destroy our most vexing qualities. The attack
upon one’s double thus becomes a suicidal gesture; a mechanism of selfdestruction. Every wound is the reciprocation of a previous injury through a
history of enmity as the desire for ascendancy ensures the repetition of the
exchange. Aware that his own actions will prompt retaliation, the rival seeks
his own suffering, and this is how the economy of revenge ensures the
recirculation of evil.
Revenge unleashes to strike the balance between rivals once their
antagonistic equilibrium has been disrupted and needs to be re-established. In
this respect, Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ can also be interpreted as a
roman-à-clef. Critics such as Reynolds have referred to ‘The Cask of
Amontillado’ as Poe’s vindictive narrative against two prominent New York
literati, the author Thomas Dunn English and the newspaper editor Hiram
Fuller. Taking this background into consideration, the narrator Montresor
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(Poe) seeks revenge on his enemy Fortunato (English) for a recent insult,
using their mutual friend Luchresi (Fuller) as a foil in his scheme. 8
5.
Mirroring texts
This assumed duality as well as the constant need to hide one’s
intentions is especially characteristic of the season. It is significant to notice
that Montresor intends to accomplish his revenge during the carnival
festivities, either to mask his activity or to insinuate his intentions. He puts on
a mask of black silk, thus signalling the role of an executioner, while
Fortunato looks like a jester. Nonetheless, both are disguised and they both
present several points in common as fitting rivals. Montresor seems to have
released himself from his double, from that part of the self he loathes. Thus,
his final exclamation in pace requiescat, which can be referring to both
himself and Fortunato, seems to point at a wish rather than a reality. Retelling
the same tale after fifty years paves the ground for shaping an unforgettable
memory which never seems to reach its proper end. Consequently, ‘The Cask
of Amontillado’, due to its ambiguous conclusion - as Montresor feels sick at
heart and can still hear Fortunato’s jingling of bells - can be interpreted as an
open-ended tale.
These two roles, executioner and jester, are also repeated in Poe’s
last tale ‘Hop-Frog’, even though roles are eventually reversed through both
stories. If Fortunato, disguised as a jester, ultimately becomes Montresor’s
victim in ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, in ‘Hop-Frog’, it is the jester who
eventually takes revenge. The similar characterisation between Fortunato and
the jester is particularly striking and foreshadows a close parallelism that can
be established between Poe’s two later tales.
The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-stripped
dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells.9
Several of the great continental ‘powers’ still retained their
‘fools’, who wore motley, with caps and bells. 10
The mirroring effect established between Montresor and Fortunato, avenger
and victim, already pointed out by Gerald Kennedy, can be expanded and
further developed in relation to the King and the jester in ‘Hop-Frog’, as
both tales present many intertextual points in common. In tales of revenge,
there is often the need to give voice to the deed committed, which can be
interpreted as an act of narcissism, as an act of confession or as a sign of
weakness on the part of the avenger. The perpetrator’s sense of superiority
vanishes when the victim ceases to exist, consequently the avenger needs to
enact the crime endlessly retelling the same tale and echoing the same
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feeling in different tales. As Girard asserts, characters in great fiction evolve
in a system of relationships which reverberate through different texts.
Having been immured in the vaults of Montresor’s family,
Fortunato’s appearance bears a close resemblance with the jester in Poe’s
‘Hop-Frog’, wearing motley, caps and bells, seeking to effect revenge. In
contrast, Montresor’s aristocratic origins and ancestral vaults render him
closer to the King in ‘Hop-Frog’. Thus, a reversal of roles has been
articulated so as to underline the circularity of revenge. However, as all
characters are often in disguise, Montresor also shares his wit with the jester,
while the King’s mesmerized condition bears a close resemblance with
Fortunato’s inability to unravel Montresor’s riddles. In any case, ‘Hop-Frog’
as a tale bears many parallelisms with ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ to the
extent both tales can be read as parallel texts mirroring each other.
If Montresor and Fortunato accentuate the mutual resemblance
between perpetrator and victim, Hop-Frog and the King, despite being rivals,
are also counterparts and often complement each other. Gradually, the
apparent difference established between the King and his fool is reversed so
as to show the jester’s real wit and the King’s true foolishness. If Fortunato’s
vanity was his expertise in wine, the King’s vanity lies in his fondness of
joking. Likewise, as rivals, Montresor also shares Fortunato’s knowledge of
wine, while the King and the jester are both especially proficient in cracking
good jokes. Despite these parallelisms, the antagonism between rivals in
both couples remains fairly obvious.
6.
Is there a reason for revenge?
In ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, the perpetual hostility between Montresor and
Fortunato may be rooted in religious conflict. Nonetheless, the reason why
Montresor seeks revenge is never explicitly acknowledged except for
Fortunato’s thousand injuries and his venture upon insult. And yet,
Montresor’s echoing phrase ‘for the love of God’ seems to point at a
Protestant-Catholic conflict lying at the heart of revenge, bearing in mind the
Brotherhood of the Masons, Protestant in orientation and strongly opposed to
the Catholic Church. As Reynolds points out, historical associations rooted
in Masonry aversion had swept America during Poe’s apprentice period,
especially referring to an actual fact involving William Morgan, a bricklayer
and a mason who, after thirty years of membership, was determined to
expose the order but was silenced by vindictive members of the order.11
In contrast, ‘Hop-Frog’ has been interpreted as a tale of revenge
with antiracist undertones, a narrative of retaliation against slavery and
racism. Hop-frog crafts a counterplot to reveal and revenge himself upon the
King, epitome of the ‘master’ race, who has abused both him and his female
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friend Tripetta. The King and his seven ministers come to occupy the
position of servants or slaves, especially taking into consideration that they
are ultimately chained and exhibited, disguised as simians before the jester
sets them on fire.12 Likewise, Fisher has also referred to postcolonial
readings of the tale interpreting Poe’s ‘Hop-Frog’ as a narrative of retaliation
against slavery and racism. Despite this discourse underlining each of the
tales, religion and slavery, Montresor admits his act of revenge responds to
Fortunato’s insult, whereas Hop-Frog’s action is aimed at punishing the King
for striking his friend Tripetta. Consequently, the act of revenge, regardless
of any major undertones, is ultimately an act of personal will.
7.
Conclusion: the circularity of revenge
All things considered, many parallelisms can be established between both
tales, which underline Poe’s never-ending poetics of revenge. First, both
Montresor and the jester share their ironic doubleness, their Socratic
approach, in order to entrap their victims. If Fortunato is unable to gain
insight into Montresor’s witty insinuations, the King cannot possibly guess
the jester’s real intentions. Likewise, both Montresor and the jester take the
necessary precautions to ensure Fortunato and the King entrap themselves,
preventing them from any possibility to retaliate, thus condemning them to
silence after arduous verbal fights.
In both tales, the avengers and their victims indulge in masquerades
to conceal or insinuate their real intentions, and similarly, the wine plays a
pivotal role in both stories. Fortunato’s conceit about his knowledge of wine
eventually leads to his demise. Nonetheless, despite his assumed expertise,
Fortunato exhibits intolerance to wine as he is hopelessly inebriated when he
reaches the vaults. In ‘Hop-Frog’, the King urges the jester to drink even if
knowing the wine exerts a powerful effect on his brain. Thus, if the wine
serves the purpose of mesmerising Fortunato, it enrages Hop-Frog and leads
him to commit murder. Likewise, Montresor’s descent into his vaults is
counteracted by the jester’s ascent to lower the chandelier and set fire to the
King and the ministers, disguised as apes.
The verbal battle anticipating both acts of revenge, which may echo
Poe’s personal one with other literary critics, takes place in both tales
through Montresor’s insinuations and the jester’s accurate depiction of the
masquerade. Fortunato is finally immured, literally turning into another cask
of amontillado, preserved in both Montresor’s vaults and memories.
Similarly, the King is transformed into a living joke, a capital diversion for
his own jester. Furthermore, if Montresor’s confessional tone implies a
lingering sense of anxiety out of guilt that urges him to repeat the same
narrative after fifty years, ‘Hop-Frog’ portrays Poe’s ultimate fantasy of
revenge with impunity.
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Both tales encode Poe’s poetics of revenge including several
structural indicators that reverberate all the way through such as immemorial
antagonism between rivals, identification with the victim, detection of the
victim’s weakness, elaborate strategies of mystification, instigation of the
victim to fall into his own trap as a result of his free choice and a final
attempt to impose eternal silence. As tales of vengeance and illustrative
examples of the literary catharsis of retribution, they generate a circular
poetics of revenge that is enacted and re-enacted through verbal battles
whereby avengers attempt to impose silence on both their nemesis and their
own most vexing qualities.
Notes
1
B.F.Fisher, The Cambridge Introduction of Edgar Allan Poe, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 2008, p.69.
2
T.Magistrale, Student Companion to Edgar Allan Poe, Greenwood Press,
London, 2001, p.92.
3
E.A.Poe, ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, in The Selected Writings of Edgar
Allan Poe, G.R.Thompson (ed), Norton, London and New York, 2004, p.415.
4
J.G.Kennedy, Poe, Death and the Life of Writing, Yale University Press,
New Haven and London, 1987, p.139.
5
E.A.Poe, ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, p.415.
6
J.G.Kennedy, op. cit., p.137-8.
7
E.A.Poe, ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, p.415.
8
D.S.Reynolds, ‘Poe’s Art of Transformation: ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ in
Its Cultural Context’, in New Essays on Poe’s Major Tales, Kenneth
Silverman (ed), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995, p.93.
9
E.A.Poe, ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, p.416.
10
E.A.Poe, ‘Hop-Frog; or, The Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs’, in The
Selected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, G.R.Thompson (ed), Norton, London
and New York, 2004, p.422.
11
D.S.Reynolds, op. cit., p.99.
12
L.S.Person, ‘Poe’s Philosophy of Amalgamation’, in Romancing the
Shadow: Poe and Race, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001, p.218.
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Marta Miquel-Baldellou
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Girard, R., Deceit, Desire and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary
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–––, ‘Hop-Frog; or, The Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs’, in The Selected
Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, G.R.Thompson (ed), Norton, London and New
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Marta Miquel-Baldellou is member of the research groups Dedal-Lit and
IRIS (Institute of Research in Identity and Society) at the University of
Lleida, Catalonia, Spain. She is mainly interested in Victorian literature,
nineteenth-century American literature, gothic literature, gender studies and
the conceptualisations of aging in the literatures of the English-speaking
countries.