Jeremy Wozunk
Dr. Mahoney
Honors Literature
3 October 2013

“Successful Revenge”

Revenge is often something used in severely negative ways and it is often something that cannot be controlled. Its often sparked off of an initial event that causes the predator to want to “get even” with their prey. However, there are tons of revenges that never were fully carried our because of poorly planned strategies. Carrying out a successful revenge is something that takes intelligent planning, exquisite execution from the beginning to the end, and impunity. A perfect example of such an act would be what Montresor performed in the short story “The Cask of Amontillado”. Revenge is often caused by and event or something that has happened. In “The Cask of Amontillado”, Montresor felt as though Fortunato had cheated him, claiming to have been the victim of Fortunato’s “1000 injuries” and “insult”. Montresor wanted a hidden murder in order to avoid using legal channels for retribution. Montresor is intelligent and uses Fortunato’s weakness against him. Next, the act of getting revenge should always try to be carried by using an opponent’s weakness against them in order to achieve an easier and smoother success. Therefore, Montresor creates his plan based on getting Fortunato to believe that he has a wine that could pass as a Spanish sherry wine, know as Amontillado, which was located in his basement.
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The proceeding step in performing revenge on someone is simply how you plan what it is that you are going to do, when, and how. He knew he wanted to terminate Fortunato, so he strategically scheduled his wine tasting with Fortunato by sending all of the servants he had away to the carnival that was occurring at the time. This resulted in Fortunato and Montresor alone in the vault. The final part and certainly