Tyler Cardwell
English IV
Ms. Blair
2nd hour
Two Amazing Stories of Gothic Literature
The two stories “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, and “The New Catacomb” by Sir Arthur Doyle are pegged as two different stories, but in reality are almost two in the same. Both stories show the same gothic elements of revenge, entrapment, villains, and share a similar setting.
One thing both stories had in common was the setting. “Cask of Amontillado” took place in the Montresor family catacomb which was underground. While “The New Catacomb” started in the city at night, it eventually transitioned to a new part of the catacombs that no one knew about. Both places had similar descriptions, except that in Poe’s story they were surrounded by nitre which grew because the part of the catacombs they were in were underneath a river. “The New Catacomb’s” setting at first was in Burger’s room, and it is at that point that he is told by Kennedy he has found a new catacomb. Both stories are describing almost the same place because catacombs can only be so different, but it’s the few key details that truly separate one place from another.
The next thing is that both stories had plans of revenge…show more content… In “The Cask of Amontillado” it was Montresor, and in “The New Catacombs” it was Burger. Both Montresor and Fortunato were adults, and Montresor definitely knew his plan before going into the catacomb. However in “The New Catacomb”, both of them were students in college, and the plan happened while they were exploring the catacomb, and Burger figured out what Kennedy had done and made a split-second decision to ditch him in the catacomb. The main differences in both stories were the age difference between the main characters. One thing both stories had in common with characters were that they both had a very limited set of characters because Poe’s story had two and Arthur’s story had two but mentioned
