Insanity Leading to Destruction in The Cask of Amontillado Essay

While reading The Cask of Amontillado i noticed that the story posses a theme that insanity that leads to destruction. As Amontillado gets Fortunado to go into the vaults by giving him alcohol, we notice that something seems to be unusual. The walls are covered in bone, which then again is not a normal sight. Amontillado keep offering Fortunado alcoholic beverages so he then can take advantage of Fortunado while he is not in a correct state of mind. When Fortunado finally falls through with Amontillados plan they both enter and Amontillado locks up Fortunado so he is unable to escape. First off, no human in their right mind would do this to someone they so call their friend, let alone offer them wine so they can soon destroy them. He builds up the wall knowing that Fortunado will never come out or let alone be able to live. In this story Amontillado does not have remorse for what he has accomplished with proof as in the story, "the noise lasted several minutes during which, that i might hearken to it with the more satisfaction, i ceased my labours and sat down upon the bones". This shows that Amontillado enjoyed and praised himself of doing the deed of killing his friend as he heard the cries of Fortunado through the wall, yet didn't think twice to save him. Also, as he repeatedly tells us how he finishes portions of the last tiers he acts as if he was doing nothing wrong. As Amontillado trembles in fear of killing Fortunado he reverse acts upon his second thoughts and in the text it says that "Unsheathing my rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess; but the thought of an instant reassured me. I placed upon the solid fabric of the catacombs, and felt satisfied. Its almost as if he reassured himself that what he had done was acceptable and in society then and now it is not. There is no excuse that he should be feeling satisfaction after he killed Fortunado. This is why this story expresses how insanity can lead to destruction.

In the story The Black Cat, there are many unusual situations that occur, and such things that we can call insane that lead to destruction. The Man in this story is an alcoholic, yet that is still no excuse for the actions that he did. It is said that he loves his animals and enjoy them very much and out of all, his favorite is his cat. Yet something suddenly urged him to hurt his cat and it says I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket!. If this guy was not insane he wouldnt counteract his words of loving his cat so much, then going about hurting the innocent animal. At the same time he felt some remorse, and knew what he did was wrong, and to cope with what he chose to do to his cat, he drank the memory away. Later in the Story, out of nowhere, one morning he decides to slip a noose around its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree with nothing said about anything going wrong with the cat and him. After he had hung the cat it says that he hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart. Now why would you with no reason kill your cat, but at the same time be crying and have so much emotions of remorse? That is insane, and alcohol is the reason? No, there is no such thing as murdering a cat that you love and kill for no reason. He then goes on to express his feelings that he hung it because he had knew that It had loved him and felt it had given no reason of offence and hung it because he knew that in doing so he was committing a sin. If you know right from wrong there are no ifs and or buts, therefore this guy is not in his right mind whether its due to his alcoholism or not. The black cat is a good example of how insanity leads to destruction and illustrates very well.

After reading the story Tell-Tale heart, The narrator claims that he is not mad, but as the reader I am convinced he is. He is bothered by the old man that lives in his house because of his pale blue eye and it seems to bother him very much. He says that the old man never wronged him or brought him harm in any kind of way but yet he goes on to kill him. Meanwhile as he awaited hours on end to kill the old man he then smiled gaily to find the deed so far done. To claim sanity you and your actions have to remain sane and by him doing this and then feeling good about it shows that in some way or another he could be called insane. The narrator then goes on to explain how he killed this old man just because of his eye that disturbed him. First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs, with explaining how he murdered the old man, we can notice that he is insane because any sane person doesnt destruct someone over a simple eye, normally someone would deal with it, just not look at it, or find a way to deal with it. He explained his deed so far done like he was proud with laughter. Also, it is sick and insane to openly explain how he cut limbs off the body. He then goes on to describe how he hid his victim, he then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings, then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, so cunningly, that no human eye not even his could detect anything wrong. This goes to explain that he knew exactly what he was doing and his insanity of his mind took over and allowed him to kill the old man over something so petty and destroy a human being, then knew precisely how he was going to get rid of the remains. Overall, this story demonstrates how insanity will lead to destruction.