Justice in The Cask Of Amontillado Essay

The Cask of Amontillado

I believe that no individual is ever justified to take justice into his or her own hands. Even though many people do take justice into their own hands, I believe that they are not actually aware of what they are doing. So in that case I believe that they are justified.

In the short story "The Cask Of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe, Montresor takes justice into his own hands. He actually buried one of his best friends alive because he embarrassed Montresor in public. In my mind that is just going too far. It may seem like nothing now a day. However, back then it was a great offence to do so and especially in public. It also seemed that when Montresor was building the brick wall, while Fortunado was moaning behind it, Montresor seemed to regret everything he was doing. But then he realized that if he freed Fortunado, Fortunado would probably go to the police and then he would go to prison. I see that Montresor is a lot like many people today. Most people don't realize that they won't ever be able to justify themselves until it is just too late and something terrible has happened.

Today it may seem that people do not take insults seriously however people do and the people that say those insults now a days may possibly die for saying it. For if you look at someone the wrong way they will literally kill you. Today people freak out about stupid things such as: characters in a play, grades, clothes, and a lot of other things, actually just about anything.

So they then go and seek revenge one the person that wronged them in such a way, so that they will feel that justice was taken. In my opinion that is just stupid because if you do take justice into your own hands and do something to the person it will just come back at you because then they will get revenge on you. And it will just keep going around in a circle until someone stops it or someone is killed. In this case you still wont justify yourself because you will have to live with the guilt of what you did to the other person.

Now although I find taking justice into your own hands completely unacceptable, I often find myself doing it. I have two older sisters that are always doing crappy things to me and at most times I try to justify myself by doing something mean to them but then they get back at me and like I said in the previous paragraph we end up going in circles. I do not believe that people can actually even be justified in taking justice into their own hands. And mainly this is because it just comes right back. People are too busy taking revenge to realize that there is no way to justify yourself without it coming back at you.

With saying this I believe that taking justice into your own hands is totally and completely unacceptable. I do believe most people would agree with me. However I bet that everyone that you would talk to has taken justice into his or her own hands at one point or another in their life.