McDonough and Poe

In "Accident, Mass, Ave" by Jill McDonough and The Cask of Amontillado' by Edgar Allan Poe reveals the innate dark human nature. As humans, we often allow our emotions to overcome and are blind-sighted by it. This theme is explored in both works, and with one understanding that issue and the other being overly blind-sighted by such emotion.

In the Cask of Amontillado', we are introduced to Montresor, who mentions that he wishes to get revenge on Fortunato's friend. Though never genuinely depicted to the audience, his reasoning was Fortunato kept insulting him. With anger as his emotion, he planned well-thought revenge on Fortunato. However, once we examine their interactions, it appears that Fortunato believes that they are friends, and even Montresor refers to him as "my friend," though this has a sarcastic undertone. The possibility that his insults were genuine lighthearted jokes could be assumed, though never revealed. Montresor acts out his revenge by utilizing his friend's enjoyment of wine, which leads to his death, in a sad and almost cruel killing, which was not discovered.

In "Accident, Mass, Ave," the speaker gets in an accident where automatically he and the person who hit him start screaming and cursing at each other. The hostile tone depicted and the visual imagery utilized allows the reader to grasp a good understanding of the situation. Ironically, after all this yelling, they realize their accident was not as bad; the lady begins to cry. Her crying was a symbol for the relief of no longer needing to pay such an amount for hitting the speaker and regretting such hostile emotions. In the end, they embrace and come together as they calm down and are ashamed. This poem, unlike The cask of Amontillado, depicts the resolution of the conflict in the story.

            Both stories conflict arise from a  natural human emotion. Amontillado's cask, the anger after being insulted, drives him to murder his friend, and it concludes without him getting caught. At the same time, the "Accident, Mass, Ave" illustrates the abilities to resolve and learn from mistakes. Both pieces of writing demonstrate human nature driven by emotion. They depict the effects of the lack of control of those emotions vs. understanding and preventing them from taking power.