Masters Reading Response to Cask of Amontillado

In Poe's Cask of Amontillado, Italy is represented through Fortunato. He is a dark character that is respected and feared. A very knowledgeable person when it comes to wine, he is described as a virtuoso Italian by the speaker. The way I read this, it sounded as though this Fortunato character was a personification of Italy. He was what everyone thinks of when Italy is discussed. The reason that this piece cannot be set anywhere else but Italy is because of this character. He is the fortune that goes away with the temptations of the world. This piece, to me, is talking on the dangers of the world. There are things that you assume will go one way and then when they go another, the outcome isn't good. For the speaker, he assumed that Fortunato would take him into the vaults where the speaker would either take from him or leave him down there. But the way I read it, the speaker was the one left down there. This would therefore, represent the trickiness of Italy and the way that you have to be on your toes while around it. This is relevant to the life that we have here while traveling and studying. Recently, a few of my friends decided to go to Pompeii, where they were swindled out of about 300 euro and one of my friends got pick pocketed. The other thing that occurs here in Italy that doesn't present itself so much in America is the gypsies. One of my friends gave some change to an old woman with a baby who "needed" change and another friend gave change to a woman: later one of the girls on the trip told us that both those women were gypsies, swindlers of change. This is Italy. This is Fortunato.