Step 2. Read the following summary and then read Poe’s story (pages 611–616). Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” was first published in 1846. “The Cask of Amontillado” is told by the narrator in the first-person point of view. As you read, think about how Poe uses first-person point of view. How would it be different if Fortunato, the narrator’s enemy, told it? Montresor, who is both the narrator and the protagonist, avenges himself against an insult from his former friend, Fortunato. How Fortunato insulted Montresor and caused such an outrageous need for revenge isn’t described in detail. Montresor meets Fortunato during the Carnival season, a time when people wear costumes and dance and drink in the streets. Fortunato is dressed like a jester, or a clown, which is ironic, for the story has a grim ending. Montresor takes Fortunato to his house and lures him deeper and deeper into the catacombs by tantalizing Fortunato with a special imported wine, an Amontillado that has arrived in a pipe, a type of barrel. In an underground vault, Montresor shackles Fortunato to the wall and leaves him to die a dreadful death. Montresor literally buries Fortunato alive. The name Fortunato is a pun (a play on words), since Fortunato is hardly a fortunate, or lucky, man. Step 3. After reading “The Cask of Amontillado,” review the study guide analysis on “Hunters” provided in your first lesson (pages 25–26). Also reread the instruction on suspense provided in your textbook (pages 105–107) and this study guide (pages 16–19). Step 4. Now study the following additional information about suspense. The famous suspense-thriller filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock explained the difference between surprise and suspense. You, the viewer (or reader), watch two characters sitting at a café table when suddenly a bomb under the table goes off. That’s surprise. When the viewer knows about the bomb and anxiously awaits the detonation, however, that’s suspense. It’s the rising action that develops the element of suspense. It builds from when the reader or viewer learns about the bomb through the innocent conversation between the unaware