Montresor does seem to spend much of his time justifying his behavior in the face of little to no evidence of Fortunato deserving his fate. The fact that no one deserves such a d
fate is obviously lost on Montresor in his righteous fury for whatever imagined slight Fortunato committed.
Still, one of my favorite, if not my top favorite, Poe story.
Yeah, it's my favorite too. I use it as an example of reader response and "fan theory"/alternative reading in my classes all the time. As long as you can back it up, right?
So much has been written about this story, particularly about the Masonic symbolism, use of numbers, all the little things. I'm surprised more hasn't gone into studying those final lines. We all know it ends with "In pace requiscat!", but hardly any attention is paid to "For half a century..."
But yeah, it's definitely a case of "methinks he doth protest too much".
Thanks for reading and commenting! :)