(no subject)

[annundriel]

So yesterday before American Lit. I was catching up on the Poe readings and I ran across this part in The Cask of Amontillado:

He turned towards me, and looked into my eyes with two filmy orbs that distilled the rheum of intoxication.

"Nitre?" he asked, at length.

"Nitre," I replied. "How long have you had that cough?"

"Ugh! ugh! ugh! - ugh! ugh! ugh! - ugh! ugh! ugh! - ugh! ugh! ugh! - ugh! ugh! ugh!"

My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes...

Now, I read the story between lunch and class and when I got to this part I distinctly thought, "I hope he (the professor) doesn't call on me to read this out-loud."

And you know what? He totally did. It's like he knew. And I knew. And there was a bunch of knowing, and I had to read it out-loud. Bah.

'Twas amusing.

I love my philosophy class so, so much. So far. The professor is spazzy and easily distracted and silly and it's just interesting. And I totally don't mind speaking up during it. It's a miracle!

Second Spanish exam in the morning. Meh.

Comments

[dragonsxist.livejournal.com]

Nice! Sounds like there's some student-teacher telepathy going on.

I read that story about a month or two ago. I didn't particularly care for the way it was written, but overall I did like the story. Really very creepy, putting yourself in the place of the man he took down to that room.

[ginnith.livejournal.com]

lol Don't you just love when you have that little niggling feeling that because you don't want that to happen, it's going to happen?

Good luck on your exams....although by now you may have already taken them, so Hope you did well. And now I'm going back to bed because Estoy muerto.

Love ya!

[juliarchy.livejournal.com]

No me gusta los examenes.

[annundriel.livejournal.com]

No teacher-student telepathy for me, please. I'd rather they *didn't* make me read the silly coughing lines.

I'm ambivalent about Poe's writing. I always appreciate his style, but this particular story felt a little different from his others. It is very creepy when you put yourself in the victim's shoes, but I also think it's creepy putting yourself in the narrator's shoes. To become so obsessed with revenge...And then, of course, does he get revenge in the end? Or rather revenge as he defines it. And why is he telling the story fifty years later? It's all very interesting.

Have you read anything else by Poe?

[annundriel.livejournal.com]

No me gusta los examenes tambien.

Bleh.

[dragonsxist.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I want to say no, even though I know I have read other things by Poe, just because it has been so long since.

I think one of the things about this story in particular that amazed me was the unspecified reason for such a horrible death. What in the world did this guy do that was so bad as to make the narrator want to leave him for dead. That amazed me. And the fact that Poe left it unspoken of was another very creative (I thought) tool to use. Makes you really think.

[annundriel.livejournal.com]

Poe's got a lot of great stuff. I never really tire of reading "The Raven". And "The Fall of the House of Usher" is good, as is "The Tell-Tale Heart". All very creepy.

Yes! The fact that we don't know any of the circumstances regarding the insult is really interesting. Although I want to conclude that the insult probably wasn't *that* serious. After all, the guy was really comfortable around the narrator. He obviously wasn't expecting something bad to happen. So I think perhaps he insulted his taste or his mother (not really) or something really trivial and the narrator is just unbalanced anyway. Possibly schizophrenic. He could be explaining himself to his conscience...

I dunno. It is a great tool though. There so many ways you can look at it.

[dragonsxist.livejournal.com]

Okay, I take it back. I remember reading "The Fall of the House of Usher", "The Tell-Tale Heart", and "The Pit and the Pendulum". All good. "The Fall..." I read in a hurry, so I didn't really grasp all of it. But "The Tell-Tale Heart" was good. A good "do the right thing" "you have a conscious" story. "The Pit and the Pendulum" (I think I'm spelling pendulum wrong) was one of my all time favourites. I remember hearing they made a movie but I refuse to see it.

As far as "The Cask..." goes, I got the impression that it was very serious. I mean, obviously serious enought to the point where the guy wanted to kill him. Or rather to die. I think the reason the guy was so unconcerned was because first, he was under the impression the narrator had forgiven him and was sold on that. Next, the victim's judgement was heavily impared by all the alcohol he had and was consuming. He was drunk. I see what your saying though, because I do remember the narrator continuously saying no, we should go back you have a cold, no we should go back your tired, no we should go back... It intrigued me. I wasn't sure if the narrator was fighting with his conscious and unsure of whether or not to actually go through with it, or if he was just giving the victim every opportunity to (unknowingly) save his own life.

I think that story is so interesting because of all the mystery it contains. It really leaves you with a lot to think about.