McDonough and Poe

In “Accident, Mass. Ave” by Jill McDonough, an example of how human interactions and assumptions occur was displayed through a car accident in the city of Boston. A woman driving a beat-up Buick accidentally backed into a man in a Chevy pickup truck. His first reaction was to get out of the car, slam the door, and start screaming. The woman, who struggled with speaking English, appeared frightened as “her little eyebrows pursed and worried.” Soon, the man realized that she had backed up into his tire and no damage had been done. This whole interaction showed how quick people are to assume and start making abrupt and aggressive remarks. In my eyes, the “beat up” Buick vs. the Chevy pickup represented how Americans treat those from other countries and how we think we are superior. 

“The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allen Poe is a story of a man who takes an assumption and turns it into an extreme situation. Montresor feels that another character of the name of Fortunato has insulted him, Montressor feels this warrants death. He decides he is going to use Fortunato's love of wine against him and lure him into his “wine cellar” and then leave him to die. He chains him up and puts up a wall of bricks so that he is stuck there to die. This is all for revenge over an insult. The lack of evidence of these claims made by Montressor displays how a big assumption led to a man’s death. 

Both stories depict how coming too quickly to conclusions only causes problems. Each situation was a misunderstanding that got blown up due to a lack of evaluating of the situation at hand.