Gregory Duch

4.29.07
Final Paper
ENG 564
Dr. Ellis

Re-erecting the Rampart of Old Bones:

Poe and the Revenge of the Fallen Gentility

"I see. Well, of course, this is just the sort of blinkered philistine ignorance I've come to expect
from you non-creative garbage. You sit there on your loathsome spotty behinds squeezing
blackheads, not caring a tinker's cuss for the struggling artist! You excrement! You whining
hypocritical toadies with your colour TV sets and your Tony Jacklin golf clubs and your bleeding
Masonic secret handshakes. You wouldn't let me join, would you? You blackballing bastards! Well,
I wouldn't become a Freemason now if you went down on your lousy stinking knees and begged me!"
-John Cleese, "Mr Wiggin", Monty Python's Architect Sketch

Midway through Edgar Allan Poe's The Cask of Amontillado, a decidedly

curious exchange occurs between the tales two players:

""His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He laughed and threw the bottle up-
wards with a gesticulation I did not understand.
I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the movement -- a grotesque one
"You do not comprehend!" he said.
"Not I," I replied.
"Then you are not of the brotherhood."
"How!"
"You are not of the masons."
"Yes, yes," I said; "yes, yes."
"You? Impossible! A mason!"
"A mason," I replied.
"A sign," he said, "a sign."
"It is this," I answered, producing from beneath the folds of my roquelaire
a trowel.
"You jest," he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. "But let us proceed to the
Amontillado."" (415)
 Today, when one comes across a reference to the Freemasons, in any form of

media, a myriad of connotations come to mind. To some, they are a charitable civic

group akin to the Rotary Club, the Lions Club and the Knights of Columbus. To others

the Masons are a sort of mystical secret society, home to either legitimate spiritual

wisdom or silly hocus-pocus, depending on one's point of view. Still a third perspective

may see the Masons as little more than the punch-line to every conspiracy theory

imagined in the last 400 years. These multiple meanings of our modern age portray an

image of the Masonic order as a somewhat amorphous and secretive, but mostly

benevolent and (possibly?) esoteric collective who only seem to pose a real threat in the

paranoid fantasies of Illuminati hunters and Templar seekers.

In the post-Revolutionary America of 1846, the year of the tale's publication,

however, the words "Freemason" and "Masonic" carried with them, in the hearts and

minds of the citizens of this country, a matched set of far more sinister and threatening

baggage stemming from events in the two prior decades (which I will go into further in a

moment). Given Poe's stated position that a tale's ultimate objective lies in its desired

"effect" on the reader, with all details of the text meticulously selected to serve this

essential function, what could Poe's purpose have been in constructing this strange,

seemingly staged, conversation? Was it simply a humorous ambiguity, meant solely as

a bit of gallows humor to mock Fortunato by foreshadowing his oncoming demise, or

was Poe giving his readers a clue, a frame through which one should view the text.

I hold that Poe had a definite intent in mind in crafting The Cask of

Amontillado, and knew exactly what his use of the word "masons" would evoke in
1846 readers. To better illustrate this contention, I will first provide, for the uninitiated, a

brief history of the evolution of and struggle faced by the Freemasons in early America.

I. A Brief History of the Freemasons in America

Freemasonry as we know it began in England as a trade guild for stonemasons.

In 1717, with the organization of London's "Grand Lodge", the order effectively cut ties

with its labor roots, refocusing on what Steven C. Bullock, in his article The Revolution

of American Freemasonry: 1752-1792, refers to as ""speculative" Masonry, a

fraternal order that built moral character rather than buildings." This new lodge brought
1

all local lodges and provincial grand lodges under one ruling body. Thirteen years later,

Philadelphia's St. John's Lodge was founded, the first Masonic Lodge on American soil.

It was around this time that the English Grand Lodge made a number of adjustments to

the order's rituals and customs.

In 1751, an organized reaction to these changes occurred and a new Grand body

arose, under the moniker "Ancient" Masonry, calling for a return to the sacred traditions

and symbols of the order which the prior lodge, deemed "Moderns", had profaned. "By

the title--and their labeling the older group as "Moderns"--the new Masons laid claim to

priority and precedence despite their later organization." In 1757, the Ancients
2

established their first lodge in Philadelphia, effectively taking over the state's Masonic

network. Boston's lodge soon followed suit and "the well-documented divisions in the

two cities involved such significant Revolutionary figures as (Benjamin) Franklin,

Andrew Oliver, and James Otis among the older ("Modern") Masons and Paul Revere
and Joseph Warren among the newer ("Ancients")." As the debate grew more intense,
3

Modern and Ancient Masons would regularly refuse each other admittance to their

respective lodges and outright deny any share of brotherhood.

Though this debate over ritual was certainly an impetus for change, what actually

fueled the reorganization of Masonry, particularly on American soil, was a sense of

social and class differences. "Moderns had brought together many of the province's

most prominent men in a society that proclaimed their gentility, cultivation, and high

social standing." The imagery and language of the Moderns proclaimed its allegiance to
4

gentility and social distinction, and loyalty to the crown was particularly rampant. As

Bullock point out, "Modern Masonry helped blunt and buffer the divisive forces of

ethnicity, religion and nationality--but it did so, ironically, by strengthening...social

division, that between gentlemen and other...brothers might sometimes boast that

"neither rich nor poor are excluded, provided they are duly qualified," in practice the

poor seldom possessed the proper qualifications." After raising its lodge fees, in the late
5

1730's, to well beyond two month's salary for a common sailor, the Boston Lodge

committee "reasoned (the increase) would not exclude "any man of merit" but would

"discourage those of mean Spirits, and narrow, or "Incumber'd Fortunes"...to let such

men into the lodge would be "disparagement to, and prostitution of Our Honor." 6

The Ancient Masons rose quickly to prominence and popularity as they opened

the group's doors to the politically powerless and social groups outside the elite,

reflecting the changes taking place in America itself. "It provided a means of redefining

social position and claiming the honor previously reserved for gentlemen of wealth,
education and family." Artisans, small retailers and craftsman, men who previously had
7

"seldom played any part in polite society" , were now able to become members of the
8

fraternity. "The new lodges reflected a rearrangement of urban social categories--a

transformation that upset older definitions of society based on a dichotomy between the

elite and everyone else." By 1800, nearly every American lodge was of the 'Ancient
9

persuasion'. Little more than a quarter of century later, the new Freemasons would

come to appear as no different than their "Modern" predecessors in the eyes of the

American public.

In 1825, the American psyche was consumed with the Jacksonian concept

empowerment for the "common man" and, with no external invaders to be concerned

with, the fear of internal, America-based threats to the country, such as the many Indian

wars/uprisings that had occurred. As David Brion Davis puts it in his piece Some

Themes of Counter-Subversion: An Analysis of Anti-Masonic, Anti-Catholic,

and Anti-Mormon Literature, it was a time of "simultaneous growth and social

democracy (that) seemed to prove that Providence would bless a nation that allowed

her citizens maximum liberty," but soon gave birth to "a special urgency as economic

growth intensified mobility, destroyed old ways of life, and transformed traditional

symbols of status and prestige." While prideful of their nation's financial growth and
10

respectful of the laissez-faire individualism of the time, Americans did not want to lose

their sense of security, national heritage and tradition, and sought "unity in some cause

transcending self-interest...(or) against extraneous forces that allegedly threatened a

noble heritage of republican ideals." 11

 This desired sense of unity saw a drastic increase in religious revivalism, reform

movements, and membership in fraternal groups and, by 1825, New York state alone

had nearly 450 Masonic lodges. When Connecticut Mason William F. Brainard asked

the rhetorical question "What is Masonry now?" in his speech at Union Lodge in New

London, CT, he answered it thusly:

"It is POWERFUL. It comprises men of rank, wealth, office and talent, in power
and out of power, and...in almost every place where power is of importance...
so as to have the force of concert throughout the civilized world." 12

Clearly, the stage was set for a confrontation, and one year later it would come with the

disappearance/murder of a man named William Morgan.

After being rejected membership to a newly forming lodge in Batavia, NY, though

he had been a member of a lodge in Leroy, NY, Morgan announced publicly in 1826

that he planned to publish a book entitled Illustration of Masonry, which would both

critique and reveal all the secrets of Freemasonry. On September 11, 1826, he was

arrested on charges of an outstanding debt, bailed out by his publisher, and rearrested

hours later for a second debt. That night, someone appeared claiming to be a friend and

bailed Morgan out again. He was reportedly then thrown into a carriage and taken to

Fort Niagara. He was never seen or heard from again.

In light of his controversial announcement, the contention of most Americans was

that Morgan had been "silenced" by fellow Masons in an effort to protect the order's

secrets. After five years of trials that led nowhere and seemed to be directed by

Freemasons involved in the New York court system, three Masons, Loton Lawson,

Nicholas Chesebro and Edward Sawyer plead guilty to and served minimal sentences
for Morgan's kidnapping, though this was seen by many to be a case of "taking the rap"

to prevent more serious testimonies. Neither Morgan's body, nor the actual details of his

demise were ever discovered. Public outcry against the Freemasons was swift and

explosive. They had found their first dreaded, internal subversive: Freemasonry

In the wake of a very public disappearance and apparent murder, and seemingly

Mason-orchestrated show trials, according to Davis, "Americans were told by various

respected leaders that Freemasons had infiltrated the government and had seized

control of the courts," it was "a group thoroughly integrated into American society and

did not reflect a clear division of economic, religious, or political interests," and they

chose to subvert American society because control of America meant control of the

world's destiny." By its very makeup, according to the public's growing nativist
13

perception, Freemasonry was the total antithesis of the American ideal: private,

powerful, amorphous, manipulative and secretive.

In their study Antimasonry and Masonry: The Genesis of Protest, 1826-

1827, Ronald P. Formisano and Kathleen Smith Kutolowski contend that, in addition to

outcry from Antimasonic political and civic leaders, a number of basic details about the

Masonic order would immediately lend themselves to the public's growing fear and

outrage and lead to involvement from religious leaders as well:

"Its most potentially controversial features, however, were its secrecy, secularism,
cosmopolitanism, elitism, and implicitly anti-egalitarian urge to provide a model of
social order and "sponsored mobility"...Its hierarchic organization, titles, pageantry,
costumes, and icons suggested to outsiders an unrepublican longing for "aris-
tocracy." Its latitudinarian religious posture and its un-Protestant idolatry prompted
evangelical pietists to denounce Masonry as an infidel competitor for men's souls,
a competing church, and as an authoritarian belief system which interfered with
freedom of individual conscience." 14
Freemasonry was not only a threat to the nation, the order, and the individual, but to an

individual's free will and soul as well! One Antimasonic New York publication even went

as far as declaring (with no sense of irony it seems) that Masonry was "becoming as

dangerous to individual rights and social liberties as the Spanish Inquisition ever was in

the zenith of its baleful power" and "in the violences inflicted on [Morgan] shall Masonry

be entombed." 15

As Davis notes in Some Themes, the Antimasonic nativist Americans

determined that the Freemasons "threatened not a particular party's program or

denomination's creed, but stood opposed to all justice, democracy, and religion." 16

Eventually, portions of the public began to demand that those who sought public office

could not be Freemasons and had to prove their non-membership. In 1827, upstate

New Yorker Thurlow Weed obliged the public by organizing the Anti-Masonic political

party. Making his intentions clear, he said "We aim, therefore, at its annihilation." 17

The Antimasonic political party grew so strong that in 1832 they ran their own

presidential candidate, former Mason William Wirt, and carried the state of Vermont for

that election year. With Freemasonry sufficiently crippled, its lodges shutting down and

members renouncing their oaths en masse, most members of the Antimasonic party

eventually made the migration over to the conservative Whig party between 1836-1838.

The damage of the movement and the political party was done, however, Masonic

membership shrank to a fraction of its former and by 1830, the number of Masonic

lodges in New York state had dwindled to 82. Still, Antimasonic sentiment lingered on

for years. As late as 1844, two years before The Cask of Amontillado's publication,
former Mason and Preisdential candidate, Henry Clay, was continually forced to

reassure the public of his divorce from the group.

II. Masonic Murder?

In 1846, when The Cask of Amontillado was published, this saga and its

sordid details would have been common knowledge amongst the American citizenry. I

will now illustrate how, mindful of the Freemasons' place in the national psyche, Poe

purposely used both overt and veiled Masonic references to trigger desired "effects" in

American readers and speak to specific ideologies amongst the populace. By clearly

playing upon American nativist paranoia, the bitterness of displaced old-moneyed

gentility, and the post-Revolutionary tendency to link American liberty and prosperity

with being in God's favor, Poe created what seems clearly designed to simultaneously

revulse one group of readers, while raising a chuckle of satisfaction in another.

There are three characters in Amontillado; the primary players , Montresor and

Fortunato; and the often remarked upon, though never seen, Luchresi. It is no

coincidence that all three monikers are references to wealth and prosperity: Montresor,

or "my treasure"; Fortunato, which means "fortunate" and can also imply "lucky"; and

Luchresi, which clearly evokes both "lucrative"/"profitable" and "lucre", slang for money.

Laid out this way, the names seem to read in a kind of descending order of

implied/perceived value and status:

Montresor/Treasure--->Fortunato/Fortunate--->Luchresi/Lucrative

Clearly not an accident, Poe uses these names early on to lay out one of the tale's
thematic undercurrents of class and wealth. Though all three men know each other and

probably operate within the same moneyed social class, their names seem to imply that,

beneath this structure, is an imbalance of worthiness. Montresor conspires to destroy

Fortunato, and both men belittle the worthiness of Luchresi.

The narrator, Montresor, tells an implied, unknown listener that, though he had

bourne "the thousadnd injuries of Fortunato", it is "when he (Fortunato) ventured upon

insult (that) I vowed my revenge."(415) Much as been made of Montresor's failure to

provide the reader with the details of either insult or injuries he has suffered, with most

taking as a signal of his insanity the fact that he is unable to discern the difference

between the two offenses. In her essay, The Motive for Murder in "The Cask of

Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe, Elena V. Baraban contends that this lack of

distinction is precisely the point. She argues that "this insult is (being) semantically

contrasted with the injuries...while "injuries" presuppose rivalry of socially equal

enemies, "insult" involves contempt...treating the other as a socially inferior person." 18

Fortunato further compounds this insult later when he is unable to recall both the

Montresor coat of arms, a "foot crushing a serpent rampant whose fangs are embedded

in the heel", and the family motto, "Nemo me impune lacessit"(418), no one may offend

me without punishment. When Montresor presents his reasons for taking revenge on

Fortunato, he echoes these same words ("I must not only punish but punish with

impunity"(415)), further solidifying the undercurrent of class within the tale.

In disclosing his family arms and motto to Fortunato, Montresor not only makes a

sinister joke about what lies ahead in his victim's immediate future, but reveals for the
reader (and Fortunato) his family's former social status, "The Montresors were a great

and numerous family."(418) This fall from status is a clear contrast to Fortunato's own

prosperous position, "rich, respected, admired, beloved...a man to be missed."(417)

While we don't know what caused the Montresor clan's decline from gentility, that

Fortunato now occupies a similar height and appears unmindful of old traditions and

trappings of status (mottos, arms, insults) serves to paint both characters as the

symbolic results of Ancient Masonry's rise to prevalence and its equalizing effect on

class in America, particularly when considered alongside the 'Masonic' exchange

presented at the start of this investigation.

There is a tendency among some critics to all-too-quickly make light of this

moment. In his analysis of Amontillado's ending, The Bouquet of Poe's

Amontillado, Francis J. Henninger states that "perhaps Poe realized the danger of

losing his reader with such an apparently predictable tale because he entertains him

with sardonic humor...(and) also piques the reader's interest with that mysterious and oft

remarked reference to the Masons." While there is no denying that seeing the words
19

"masons" and "brotherhood" piques the readers interest (after all, I wouldn't be writing

this if it didn't), to discard Poe's usage of Freemasonry (as well as the tale's humor) as

mere decoration meant to keep his readers dazzled and focused is to fail to

acknowledge both the author and our nation's history. Not only does Henninger, and

critics of his ilk, forget the Poe's own theory on writing, that "there should be no word

written of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the on pre-established design"

(692), but he completely glazes over a number of essential clues to Amontillado's

Masonic undercurren". If every word in a Poe tale is an essential puzzle piece in a

grand design, then Montresor and Fortunato's exchange on Masonry begs for a close

reading, through "Masonic lenses".

Looking first at the narrator's reactions to Fortunato's "gesticulations", we see two

important details. Not only does he not recognize the gesture, but he characterizes it as

"grotesque." (419) Rather than using a more neutral word like "odd" or "strange", Poe

has deliberately had Montresor characterize the movement as sinister and revolting,

possibly monstrous since Fortunato's "eyes flashed with a fierce light"(419) a moment

beforehand. Montresor's failure to recognize the gesture clearly marks him as not

currently being a Mason, though had he been a lapsed former Mason of the "Modern"

school he might not recognize the symbolic gesture of the newer "Ancient" Masons.

Montresor does, however, seem to show that he knows Fortunato is currently a

Freemason when, in response to Fortunato's query about whether or not he is "of the

brotherhood"(418), he produces a trowel, one of the group's sacred symbols, from his

cloak. At this moment, Montresor is not only waving one of his tools of murder in the

face of his victim, but is clearly mocking Fortunato's Masonic membership, enacting a

visual pun (which Fortunato doesn't quite comprehend) by equating the "masons" with

their true "ancient" roots as a mere stone masons trade group. It becomes apparent that

this joke is a clear and intentional set-up on Poe's part when we later discover that

Montresor's other dark tools, the stone and mortar, have been carefully hidden away in

the tombs in anticipation of the murder. Otherwise, Montresor would have left his trowel

hidden there as well. Fortunato's status as a member of the Freemasons is clearly a

factor in his eventual demise and Montresor's joke is actually one of many clues, which

Montresor does not catch, of what lies in his future and why it must happen. Montresor

is most likely either a former "Modern" Mason or an Anti-Masonic former aristocrat

seeking to punish the new order.

The third puzzle piece in this exchange is Fortunato's gesture itself. As Abner

Cohen points out in his Masonic study, The Politics of Ritual Secrecy, when an

individuals are accepted into the membership of Freemasonry, they are "entrusted with

new secret signs, passwords and hand-claps, and are made to take oaths, under the

threat of horrifying sanctions, not to betray these secrets to outsiders." In performing

20

this gesture in front of Montresor and probing for his status as a member, Fortunato is

clearly breaking his Masonic oath. When he makes the movement, whether it is a probe

to see if Montresor is also a Mason or is merely meant as a toast as he drinks from the

"flacon De Grave"(418) (another bit of black humor and missed clue from Montresor),

Fortunato's inquiry should have ceased as soon as Montresor acknowledged not

recognizing the gesture. In going further, he acknowledges his own membership which,

by extension, gives away a Masonic secret (the gesture), and according to the order's

rules, he must now pay in some way for his transgression. Fortunato has become Poe's

William Morgan, the wayward Mason who planned to expose all of Masonry's secrets to

thousands of outsiders and whose murder in 1826 became the flash-point for the rise of

America's nativist Anti-Masonic movement. Neither Morgan's, nor Fortunato's body was

ever found.

That Fortunato is inebriated when he errs is also of some significance. Already

drunk on Carnival libations when the two men meet in the street, Fortunato initiates the

night's events upon learning of the prospect of tasting a rare and prized "Amontillado".

Montresor alternately pleads him back and procures him other alcohols (the previously

provided Medoc and aforementioned flacon), fortifying his drive to lead the pair further.

Though alcohol figures prominently in many Poe tales, in this case it may have been

used with a more specific intent. As Dana D. Nelson points out in The Haunting of

White Manhood: Poe, Fraternal Ritual and Polygenesis, the "new group

composed largely of mechanics and militia men established itself as "Ancient"

Freemason...(and) soon (became) infamous for their drinking and carousing habits." 21

Montresor is clearly using this knowledge of Fortunato, and Ancient Freemasonry,

against his victim. Under the influence of alcohol, Fortunato incriminates himself, in both

class and Masonic terms, continually misreads Montresor's jokes at his expense and

clues of intent, and, eventually, delivers himself blindly unto death.

For a brief vignette utilized merely to pique the reader's interest, it seems an odd

coincidence that so much of it could serve alternately entertain those opposed to

Masonry and enrage those who remained loyal, no?

If, as I contend, this moment is an essential clue to Poe's desired effect, or intent,

then stepping back and observing the entire course of Fortunato's "death walk" and

eventual demise, these themes of alternately mocking and punishing the 'new' Ancient

Masons, while reasserting aristocratic power and revealing the secrets of Masonry to

the masses should run throughout the tale...and indeed, they do.

Masonic initiation ceremonies were a kind of sacred, symbolic theater; a

ritualized, metaphoric sequential of degradation, death and rebirth of the soul of the

initiate into the order. Ms. Nelson sums it up best:

"These rituals emphasized the degraded nature of the initiate's worldly self and
of the world outside the fraternity. Elaborating a symbolic death and rebirth,
initiations exterminated a debased, sinful, unmanly and dirtied self...Humiliation
(was) central to the ceremonies...With the candidate sufficiently soaked in his
own shame and embarrassment, the ritual proceeded to rescue or rebirth the
candidate into a new family, his all-male secret brotherhood...it was precisely
their formalized, emotionally intense, affectively gratifying subordination to group
leadership that allowed fraternal orders to function in a way that satisfied these
needs. Brotherhood was grounded - as Christopher Newfield so precisely phrases
it - in "rewarding subjection."
22

If we view Montresor's plot as a similar 'death-ritual', we can see that it bears many

similarities and inversions of a Masonic rite. Each participant in a Masonic initiation

ritual played their own specific role according to status within the Order's hierarchy. By

setting the story during Carnival season, Poe is able to costume Montresor and

Fortunato according to the parts they will play in this drama, and influence how a reader

would view both of them: Fortunato is the fool in "motley" dress, Montresor is cloaked

and masked in black, like an executioner or avenger or assassin.

The Freemasons didn't go out recruiting for new members. Initiates entered into

Masonic membership, often motivated by the order's promise of rare spiritual/esoteric

knowledge and enlightenment, of their own free will with the burden of proving their own

worthiness to the Masonic hierarchy. Similarly, as Robert Con Davis-Udiano reminds us

in his Poe and the American Affiliation with Freemasonry, "it is explicitly

Fortunato himself who chooses to enter the cellar maize--insisting upon his own

worthiness to make the discriminations between wines that Montresor pretends to

want." Enamored of the prospect of tasting a rare, prized "Amontillado", which

23

Montresor never expressly offers to him, Fortunato demands "come let us go...to your
vaults." Montresor continually reinforces this image of an inverted Masonic initiation by

attempting to verbally dissuade Fortunato on no less than five occasions. Though,

admittedly, two of these are offered more as taunts after Fortunato has already been

secured to the walls of his tomb, these are more than the mere provocations of a sadist.

Fortunato must reaffirm that it is his idea and choice to continue on in pursuit of his

illusive "Amontillado". As Carl H. Claudy states in his Introduction to Freemasonry I:

Entered Apprentice:

"Freemasons do not proselyte. The Order asks no man for his petition...a man
must come to the West Gate of a lodge "of his own free will and accord."
24

Montresor's attempts to dissuade Fortunato's advancement are psychological triggers,

carefully designed to both mimic Masonry and bring Fortunato to the eventual

realization that he has lead himself into this trap, enacting an entirely different form of

death ritual.

As noted earlier, Montresor also utilizes a number of verbal and visual jokes to

both mock Fortunato and provide clues to what lies ahead, which Fortunato completely

fails to interpret when they first occur, but would be become grimly obvious when he

could no longer escape. When Fortunato declares, "I shall not die of a cough,"

Montresor knowingly replies "true--true."(417) When Fortunato toasts the dead

Montresors surrounding the two men in the catacombs, Montresor ironically toasts

Fortunato's "long life"(418) The drunken fool completely misses the heavy handed pun

of the "flacon of De Grave", the imagery of the Montresor arms, the implications of the

Montresor motto, the trowel as both murder weapon and genuine insult to his own

Masonic order. Montresor boldly dangles clue after clue right before his victim's eyes,
like a Hitchcockian villain, and Fortunato will recognize none of it until it is too late. He is

being put through the first stage of an inverted Masonic ritual, debasement of the

initiate, and he doesn't even realize it.

Even the titular "Amontillado" is one of Montresor's tools for mocking Fortunato

and highlighting his unworthiness. As was already pointed out, the beverage serves to

mock Fortunato drunkenness, as well as Ancient Masonry's known reputation for too

much drink but, it also illuminates his intellectual and social inadequacy. Early in the

tale, when mocking Luchresi, Fortunato says "he cannot tell Amontillado from

Sherry."(416) There is a temptation to read his jest as ironic humor, highlighting

Luchresi as an "ignoramus"(419), but this level seems to be an overestimation of

Fortunato's own intelligence given the plethora of insults and threats that Montresor

repeatedly sends over his head. More likely, Fortunato himself is meant to appear

equally as socially inept as Luchresi in his knowledge of fine alcohols.

Still another implication of Montresor using "Amontillado" as his lure for Fortunato

lies in the word itself. In his Poe's The Cask of Amontillado, Charles W. Steele

carefully dissects the word to illustrate its probable metaphorical meaning:

"Rendered in English, the term means "Montilla-fied" wine. No other meaning does
have relevance...The Italian past participles ammonticchiato and ammonticellato,
signifying "collected or formed into little heaps" are from two derivative forms of
the verb ammontare (to heap up; Spanish: amontonar; past part, amontonado).
The ch (k) and the c (ch as in chill) of the Italian past participles positioned as
they are in their respective words and spoken rapidly would both approach our j.
The ll of amontillado (variously like our li in million and the y of yes) when pro-
nounced emphatically gives roughly the same result. Thus an apparent identity
of sound exists for the untrained ear.(As Poe was taught Italian and Spanish at
the same time in 1826 at Charlottesville by Professor Blaettermann, a German,
it is quite possible that he was not an expert on pronunciation.)
 The implication of Montresor's pun may be understood as the pile of bricks he
hastily threw to wall in Fortunato. As the climax of the story is reached, he
causes his victim to repeat the word amontillado...a final time, as if to assure
himself that his subtle and superior wit has been fully appreciated."
25

Fortunato, an Italian, in failing to detect this double meaning, clearly shows himself to be

either intellectually or educationally deficient, possibly both.

Interestingly, Steele sees the mound as the pile of bricks that Montresor uses to

wall Fortunato into the tomb (and the wall constructed from them), referred to in the tale

as a "quantity of building stone and mortar."(420) I would argue that the "heap" in

'Amontillado' is actually meant to be the bones of the dead Montresors, which we see

alternately called a "mound of some size", a "pile" and, later, a "rampart" erected

"against the new masonry."(419-421) All three are words that could be argued as

synonymous with Steele's term "heap".

If we take this wordplay a step further and consider the title word "Cask", an

obvious extension of this root word rises to the surface: 'casket', which clearly keeps

with the theme and details of the story. Combine this with my prior assertion on

Amontillado, and we get 'the casket of old bones'. This means that even Montresor's

assertion that there is a "cask of amontillado" lying in wait for Fortunato is technically

true. Regardless of whether Fortunato was able to read its actual meaning, Montresor

could argue that he has told his victim exactly where he was being taken to and tha the

had entered of his own free will. In Masonic terms, according to Claudy, this constitutes

failure to accept initiation:

"The candidate who sees in the Masonic initiation of the Entered Apprentice only
a formal and dignified ceremony designed to take up an evening and push him
one step forward toward membership in the Order refuses to accept his initiation.
Neither lodge nor brethren can help this. If a man will not accept what is
 offered, if his understanding is so dull, his mind so sodden, his imagination so
dead that he cannot glimpse the substance behind the form, both he and the lodge
are unlucky."
26

From moment one, through metaphoric language, Montresor has enacted his own

equivalent of a Masonic black mass, inverting the initiation process of Freemasonry to

enact a ritual designed to find Fortunato unworthy and end in his death, rather than

rebirth.

If there be doubt that this is indeed a ritual, we need look no further than

Montresor's initial explanation of his plan for Fortunato's punishment. In the second

paragraph of The Cask of Amontillado, Montresor says, "I continued, as was my

wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought

of his immolation."(415) While the word has come to be associated with death by fire, its

more general meaning is simply a killing as an offering or sacrifice. In referring to

Fortunato's demise as an immolation, a sacrifice, Montresor is both laying out this

notion of the entire tale as a ritual, and setting up the Masonic imperative of an initiate's

free-will. Fortunato must offer himself up of his own free-will, otherwise the entire

process is mere murder, at least in Montresor's eyes.

When Montresor closes the ritual with his final detail, "against the new masonry I

re-erected the old rampart of bones"(421), his intentions become glaringly clear.

Knowing what we now know American Masonic history, Masonic ritual, and the class

status of both men, Montresor (and Poe's) intent is obvious. "In duplicating the elements

of Masonic ritual," says Robert Con Davis-Undiano, "Montresor has also effectively

turned the wine cellar into a "Lodge" , but I would suggest that this is not entirely
27

accurate. Rather than duplicating a Masonic ritual, Montresor has, in fact, enacted a
perversion of a Masonic initiation, a sacrifice, and turned his family tomb into an Anti-

Masonic Lodge. By making an offering of a "new" Ancient Mason, who has come of

their own free will, in his familial 'sacred space', Montresor is reasserting the authority of

the displaced American gentility in hopes of achieving their rebirth, of re-erecting "the

old rampart of bones." Fortunato unknowingly plays out the process of subjugation from

a Masonic initiation ritual but, in keeping with the tale's perverted mirror image of

Masonry, he finds himself repositioned as an inferior under a Montresor's re-established

American class hierarchy, rather than the more open, democratic hierarchy of his

Masonic brothers. It recalls, once more, the rise of the Anti-Masonic movement after the

disappearance of William Morgan, which successfully undid much of the progress made

by the Ancient Masons.

Further, when Montresor echoes Fortunato's final pleas with a matter-of-fact

"Yes, for the love of God"(421), he confirms that this sacrifice is not only for the "old"

Modern Masons and the deposed American gentility, but for the general American

public and American religious leaders who, as Noel P. Gist points out in Structure and

Process in Secret Societies, feared Masonry and other fraternal "societies which they

regarded as "unchristian"" and a threat to America's prosperity which, again, stemmed

28

from being in God's favor or Providence. Returning to Some Themes of Counter-

Subversion, David Brion Davis sums this national sentiment up best:

"The murder of William Morgan raised an astonishing public furor because it

supposedly revealed the inner secret of Freemasonry. Perverted by a false
ideology, (Ancient) Masons had renounced all obligations to the general
public, to the laws of the land, and even to the command of God."
29

Poe is reinforcing this idea of perceived righteous duty first glimpsed in the imagery of
Montresor's family arms: a foot crushing a serpent. This is an image of man's struggle

against evil/the devil from the Old Testament, clearly meant to signify Montresor as the

holy avenger, delivering America from the (satanic?) evil serpent that was/is

Freemasonry and restoring the proper order.

With The Cask of Amontillado, Edgar Allan Poe created the diabolically

unthinkable, a tale of seemingly justified murder. By mocking the new Ancient

Freemasons and inverting their rituals against one of their members, while symbolically

reestablishing the fallen American aristocracy and assuaging the fears of paranoid

nativists, Poe constructed a tale designed to evoke two distinctly different effects in its

readers. To the Anti-Masonic American, Amontillado, while admittedly grotesque,

reads like a sick little fantasy and victory dance in which Freemasons are systematically

ridiculed and degraded before meeting their deserved ends, reestablishing the proper

social order. To the remaining loyal members of the Masonic order, the tale is a

deliberate slap in the face by an author who (it is believed) was not member but, knew

enough (it seems) to systematically savage the reputation of their membership, mock

and expose their rituals(through inversion), parody their controversies, trumpet the

victory of their detractors, and, just to add his own little insult to injury, published this

trouncing (of an all-male secret society) in the pages of a women's publication,

Godey's Lady's Magazine.

 Notes:

1. Bullock, Steven C., "The Revolutionary Transformation of American Freemasonry,

1752-1792," The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., Vol. 47, No. 3 (July
1990):
347-369.
2. Bullock 347-369.
3. Bullock 347-369.
4. Bullock 347-369.
5. Bullock 347-369.
6. Bullock 347-369.
7. Bullock 347-369.
8. Bullock 347-369.
9. Davis, David Brion, "Some Themes of Counter-Subversion: An Analysis of Anti-
Masonic, Anti-Catholic, and Anti-Mormon Literature," The Mississippi Valley
Historical Review, Vol. 47, No. 2 (Sep. 1960): 205-224.
10. Davis 205-224.
11. Davis 205-224.
12. Brainard, William F., Masonic Lecture, Spoken Before the Brethren of Union
Lodge, New-London, On the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, June 24, A.L.
5825
(1825), quoted from Ronald P. Formisano and Kathleen Smith Kutolowski's
"Antimasonry and Masonry: The Genesis of Protest, 1826-1827," American
Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Summer 1977): 139-165.
13. Davis 205-224.
14. Formisano, Ronald P. and Kathleen Smith Kutolowski, "Antimasonry and Masonry:
The Genesis of Protest, 1826-1827," American Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 2
(Summer
1977): 139-165.
15. Miller, David, Batavia Republican Advocate (Sep. 22, 1827), quoted from Ronald
P. Formisano and Kathleen Smith Kutolowski's "Antimasonry and Masonry: The
Genesis of Protest, 1826-1827," American Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Summer
1977): 139-165.
16. Davis 205-224.
17. Weed, Thurlow, "Antimasonic Broadside" (1827), 1856, Olin Library, Cornell
University, quoted from Ronald P. Formisano and Kathleen Smith Kutolowski's
"Antimasonry and Masonry: The Genesis of Protest, 1826-1827," American
Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Summer 1977): 139-165.
18. Baraban, Elena V., "The Motive for Murder in "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar
Allan Poe," Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature, Vol. 58,
No. 2
(2004):47-62.
19. Henninger, Francis J., "The Bouquet of Poe's Amontillado," South Atlantic
Bulletin,
Vol. 35, No. 2 (Mar. 1970): 35-40.
20. Cohen, Abner, "The Politics of Ritual Secrecy," Man, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Sep. 1971):
427-448.
21. Nelson, Dana D., "The Haunting of White Manhood: Poe, Fraternal Ritual and
Polygenesis," American Literature, Vol. 69, No. 3 (Sep. 1997): 515-546.
22. Nelson 515-546.
23. Davis-Undiano, Robert Con, "Poe and the American Affiliation with Freemasonry,"
symploke, Vol. 7.1-2 (1999): 119-138.
24. Claudy, Carl H., Introduction to Freemasonry I: Entered Apprentice.
Washington
 D.C.: The Temple Publishers, 1931.
25. Steele, Charles W., "Poe's 'The Cask of Amontillado'" (1960), quoted from Elena V.
Baraban's "The Motive for Murder in "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan
Poe," Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature, Vol. 58, No. 2
(2004):
47-62.
26. Claudy, Carl H., Introduction to Freemasonry I: Entered Apprentice.
Washington
D.C.: The Temple Publishers, 1931.
27. Davis-Undiano 119-138.
28. Gist, Noel P., "Structure and Process in Secret Societies," Social Forces, Vol. 16,
No. 3 (Mar. 1938): 349-367.
29. Davis 205-224.

Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Cask of Amontillado." G.R. Thompson. The Selected Writings
of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2004. 415-421.
Poe, Edgar Allan. "Nathaniel Hawthorne." G.R. Thompson. The Selected Writings of
Edgar Allan Poe. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2004. 685-693.