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Caroline Cooper
Psychoanalytic Paper
ENGL 305
October 2710, 2014
Lacanian Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado”
“The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured
upon insult, I vowed revenge” (Poe 14). These are the first words uttered by Montresor in Edgar
Allan Poe’s short story “The Cask of Amontillado.” According to Jacques Lacan’s
psychoanalytic theory the unconscious is structured as a language. Language is inefficient so a
person can never fully articulate his or her desires through words. However, the unconscious is
structured like a language, whereas Freud says the unconscious is associated with repression.
Lacan believes that people strive for wholeness and completeness in the Real, or as Freud would
define it, the superego which tells people how to behave through social norms and expectations
such as family, religion, or education. The idea of the unconscious being structured as a language
through a confession, jouissance, and the objet petit a are all represented in Edgar Allan Poe’s
short story “The Cask of Amontillado”. Greg W. Zacharias defines jouissance as, “the
combination of pleasure and ironic displeasure” (324). The objet petit a is the eternally lacking
object and is the main cause of desire. These two concepts relate to Montresor’s mastery and
control over Fortunato.
“The Cask of Amontillado” is a confession where Montresor explains why and how he
kills his friend Fortunato. The confession only enhances the fact that Montresor has insecurities
with his masculinity because he needed to make sure others knew of his “triumph” over
Fortunato. While the wine is Fortunato’s privileged signifier this confession is Montresor’s
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symbol of power. Montresor’s main goal is to gain power over Fortunato and completeness as a
man through jouissance, the objet petit a, and the confession or privileged signifier.
Confession is a major concept in this short story, “The confessional mode of the narrative
increases rather than releases anxiety because, as Zizek writes, “the more we submit ourselves to
the superego imperative, the greater its pressure, the more we feel guilty’” (Zacharias 326).
Montresor is the narrator of this story so he is, in fact, confessing to the murder of Fortunato, but
he does not feel guilty. It must also be noted that the unconscious shapes the way the story is
interpreted. Montresor explicitly states his intentions of not only killing Fortunato, but also
killing him in such a way that no one would ever find out. If this is true there would be no need
for a confession. “It must be understood, that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato
cause to doubt my good-will. 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” (Poe 14). The question is why
Montresor feels the need to tell the reader all about his elaborate plan to kill Fortunato if he
repeatedly mentions the importance of his impunity.
While the wine is Fortunato’s privileged signifier this story, this confession is
Montresor’s symbol of power. The reader can do nothing to stop him, the event already
happened. By revealing his crime against Fortunato, Montresor gains power thus reaffirming his
belief that he is not a murderer, but an avenger. He takes pleasure in his triumph of sealing up
Fortunato for centuries to come and pleasure in the fact that he has committed his crime with
impunity. The fact that his family’s coat of arms is, “a huge human foot d’or, in a field azure; the
foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel” (Poe 16) and his family’s
motto is, “Nemo me impune lacessit” translated to “no one wounds me with impunity” (Poe 16)
reinforces the phallus symbol. Montresor is living up to the expectations set up by his forefathers
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through this motto, thus making him a real man of the family. This is why he needs the
confession. In Ross C. Murfin’s Psychoanalytic Criticism he explains, “For boys, gender
awareness involves another, more powerful recognition, for the recognition of the father’s
phallus as the mark of his difference from the mother involves, at the same time, the recognition
that his older and more powerful father is also his rival” (310). It is not because he feels guilty;,
it is because he is proud of living up to his family’s motto, getting the privileged signifier, and
obtaining completeness in a Lacanian sense.
Greg W. Zacharias defines jouissance as, “the combination of pleasure and ironic
displeasure” (324). Montresor finds pleasure in avenging himself from Fortunato in an unhealthy
way. This is described as jJouissance which means to find pleasure in pain.is finding pleasure in
pain. Montresor finds pleasure in the torment he inflicts upon Fortunato. When Montresor first
sees Fortunato he says, “I was so pleased to see him, that I thought I should never have done
wringing his hand” (Poe 14). Clearly, he is not pleased to see him in the friendly way Fortunato
believes. Montresor is happy to see him because he has an elaborate plan to kill him. This relates
back to the pleasure he will get after inflicting pain upon Fortunato. Montresor also shows his
jouissance while Fortunato is moaning in his soon to be grave: “The noise lasted for several
minutes, during which, that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labors
and sat down upon the bones” (Poe 18). Montresor was enjoying the agony of Fortunato so much
that he actually had to take the time to stop and savor the moment. He clearly enjoys the torment
he puts Fortunato through and his plan was prepared well in advance also in great detail.
Montresor commits this crime against Fortunato because he confuses fantasy with
realityFantasy should never be confused with reality. He feels that Fortunato has wronged him in
a way that is unforgivable and because of this he forgets the reality of the situation. Zacharias
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says that, “In Lacanian terms, fantasy defines a subject’s impossible relation to the objet [petit]
a” (Zacharias 325). The concept of fantasy can also be related to “The Cask of Amontillado.”
The objet petit a is the eternally lacking object and is the cause of desire. In Montresor’s case he
constantly thought about how he was wronged. Montresor says:
The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured
upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not
suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this
was a point definitely settled-but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved
precluded the idea of risk. (Poe 14)
The fantasy creates a new state of mind. In the long run, he feels he is entitled, and that it is his
duty to kill Fortunato. Montresor also stresses that, “I must not only punish, but punish with
impunity” (Poe 14). In his eyes, he is an avenger not a murderer. Montresor spent too much time
brooding over how he was wronged by Fortunato and thus spent too much time fantasizing about
how he would be avenged. What was so horrible that he needed to kill Fortunato? He killed him
in such an inhumane and extremely premeditated way. He had everything planned out down to
even the psychological aspect of the plan.
Unlike Freud, Lacan talks about privileged signifiers as a symbol for the phallus and that
males are conditioned to find completeness through the search for the phallus. Montresor finds
this privileged signifier in the special wine, Amontillado. The wine represents power and
Montresor uses this symbol of power to lure Fortunato down to the crypt. Montressor is working
on the idea that Fortunato is in search of the phallus as well and makes it seem like he is giving
him power. He constantly tells Fortunato that he values his opinion when it comes to the wine.
Montresor validates him, thus placing that privileged signifier just within reach and then
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threatens to take that power, the privileged signifier, and phallic symbol away from him by
mentioning Luchesi. Fortunato says, “And as for Luchesi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from
Amontillado” (Poe 15). Luchesi is clearly someone Fortunato rivals with and feels he himself is
superior. He is constantly mentioning Fortunato’s enemy Luchesi to get him worked up. So he
will not back out, Montresor also keeps mentioning his health as a way to irritate and annoy him
into continuing in search of the coveted wine. His one last push to make sure he has Fortunato is
when he says, “‘Proceed,’ I said; ‘herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchesi--’” (Poe 18). After
he chains him up he taunts him exposing his plan, “‘Indeed it is very damp. Once more I implore
you to return’” (Poe 18).
Clearly, Montresor felt the need to murder Fortunato in order to feel complete within
himself. He needed to live up to his family’s motto and avenge himself from the wrongs he
inflicted from Fortunato. Through his confession and living out his family’s motto, Montresor
gains the power and masculinity he desires. This power is symbolized through the privileged
signifier, the Amontillado wine.
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Works Cited
Murfin, Ross C. “Psychoanalytic Criticism and The Turn of the Screw: What is Psychoanalytic
Criticism?” in The Turn of the Screw. The Turn of the Screw. By Henry James. 3rd ed. Ed.
Peter G. Beidler. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010. Print.
Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Cask of Amontillado.” Literature A Portable Anthology. 3rd ed. Ed.
Janet E. Gardner. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013. 14-19. Print.
Zacharias, Greg W. “The extraordinary flight of heroism the occasion demanded of me”: Fantasy
and Confession in The Turn of the Screw. The Turn of the Screw. By Henry James. 3rd ed.
Ed. Peter G. Beidler. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010. Print.