“The barrel of Amontillado” by Edgar Allen Poe is a very interesting short story about revenge for insults of Fortunato towards Montresor. Montresor plots to kill Fortunato with his knowledge of wine in order to lure him to his death. When Montresor brings him to the catacombs beneath the carnival, he ultimately kills Fortunato by trapping him and burying him alive. The story mirrors his life in some ways and the reasons why Poe wrote this short story are fascinating to know. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay This story is filled with irony and Montresor acts on impulse and feels no remorse or regret for his actions. As Fortunato portrays the victim, he has an alcohol addiction which impairs people's judgment, making him gullible, which then leads to his death. In the story Poe represents two different aspects of himself, one side of him is Montresor which represents evil and the other side which represents the victim, Fortunato. “Poe's psychology is clearly known to both the narrator of the story and the victim of the story. For example, Poe's darkest desires can easily be depicted through Montresor's eyes while Fortunato's character reveals a sense of despair and helplessness. That being said, Poe's life and experiences have a serious effect on the psychology of Montesor and Fortunato's characters. Although Edgar Allen Poe is not exactly like Montresor, it shows in the story that they are almost equals. While Poe was young, his mother died of tuberculosis and his father died of too much alcohol consumption. Poe was then adopted into a new family by John Allen. He and his adoptive father always argued about his gambling and alcohol addiction, which could have explained his problems with his father. Additionally, while attending school in Richmond, Poe was always excluded from activities his classmates participated in because of his mother who had little money as an actress and could not support him. This made Poe very isolated, which relates very well to “The Cask of Amontillado.” With Montresor killing Fortunato, it shows that Montresor was seeking some sort of closure, just as Poe is also seeking. Poe's relationship with Fortunato is formed with the many deaths in his life that he must deal with. With the death of his biological mother, his adoptive mother and his numerous wives, this forces him to develop a form of paranoia of loneliness. The quote "Fortunato, in a sense, acts as a shadow projection as he projects Poe's deepest feelings of despair and abandonment", explains that Fortunato shows the same emotions as Poe, showing a huge relationship of character. Another representation of his life would be the quote "AN Stevens suggests that Poe first heard the anecdote on which he might have based this story while he was a soldier in the army in 1827", this represents a story where Poe saw a tombstone of Lieutenant Massie who had been unjustly killed in 1827. a duel of Captain Green. His fellow officers decided to take revenge on him for killing Massie. They acted as if they were friendly towards Green by giving him wine until he was extremely drunk. Then they carried the captain into a small opening that led to the dungeons. The people who captured him chained him to the ground, then, using bricks and mortar, locked him inside alive. Captain Green had died an inhumane death in just a few days. This could have.