Edgar Allan Poes Short Stories - Book Report/Review Example

This tale arose from a fiery death of a chained mean gluttonous king and his seven members of his cabinet council drenched in thick flammable tar and flax by the hands of an enslaved crippled dwarf named Hop-Frog and possibly his wife Tripetta. Revenge ravaged this couple, encasing them in choosing to perform a vengeful and vicious act after many painful years of humiliation and foolish acts for the freedom of physical body and pride. Various similarities become obvious between these two pieces of literature by Edgar Allan Poe.

Revenge is a very significant theme for these two tales to share. A person of 'higher status' commits great dishonor towards a person of some what a 'lower status', a higher or lower status accredited by society. Humiliating the victim is a key ingredient to remedying the humiliation that was inflicted upon the villain in past circumstances and years. "THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge." 2 A quotation taken from "The Cask of Amontillado" depicting the revenge the insane villain planned to take, upon the unknown insults the victim had inflicted upon him, causing unrecoverable amounts of humiliation.

In comparison to the following quotes that explain the revenge taken and reasons for it due to the humiliation that had been forced upon poor Hop-Frog by the king - Edgar Allan Poe (1850) "He knew that Hop-Frog was not fond of wine, for it excited the poor cripple almost to madness; and madness is no comfortable feeling. But the king loved his practical jokes, and took pleasure in forcing Hop-Frog to drink and (as the king called it) 'to be merry." "His mode of equipping the party as ourang-outangs was very simple, but effective enough for his purposes.

" "Owing to the high combustibility of both the flax and the tar to which it adhered, the dwarf had scarcely made an end of his brief speech before the work of vengeance was complete." 3In both tales the villains being Montresor and Hop-Frog used wine as a method of trickery and distortion of reality, for the victim, "True --true," I replied; "and, indeed, I had no intention of alarming you unnecessarily --but you should use all proper caution. A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps.

" "The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled. My own fancy grew warm with the Medoc. We had passed through long walls of piled skeletons, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost recesses of the catacombs. I paused again, and this time I made bold to seize Fortunato by an arm above the elbow." 2The usage of wine had been a great method in the kings madness to drain Hop-Frog of any dignity he may have had left by forcing him to drink the wine, thus building Hop-Frog's inner anger towards the king and increasing his desire for vengeance.

The trickery lay within the plot that the king and his seven cabinet councillors had also been indulging in the wine and their distortion of what will be a good jest to play upon others and what in-fact will become the jest upon them by believing the nonsense yet very well explained situation they will cause. Being up for any jest, the intoxication of the wine and the chance