Blog-only bonus question! If the story is an allegory of writing, and Montresor a kind of author, what would that make Fortunato: his character, a reader, a literary rival?

Why are we never told what "injuries" & "insult" (p. 14) Montresor suffered?

Who is the "you, who so well know the nature of [Montresor's] soul (p. 14)?"

What does Montresor's carnival costume (p. 15) reveal about him?

Why does Montresor probe the recess with his rapier (p.19)?

What feelings does Montresor have about his act?

What death is referred to in the title?

Is there pattern & meaning to the many alternations between past & present verb tenses?

What makes it impossible for Lois to get over Lucy's disappearance?

What part do men play in "Death by Landscape?"

What causes the "recognition, or...joy" (p. 391) of the story's conclusion? Is it a delusion?

What would be lost if the story's frame, Lois's pictures, was removed?

Is idealistic confidence in democratic principles based on a "too optimistic view of human nature?"

Is "bourgeois civilization...in grave peril (p. 239)?"

How does Niebuhr distinguish "what is false in democratic theory from what is true in democratic life (p. 255)?"

What does Niebuhr mean when he says (p. 239) that the community requires freedom as much as the individual?

How are the human capacities for evil as well as good derived from the "spiritualization" of human impulses?

If "the simple distinctions between good & evil, between selfishness & altruism...[are] invalid," how can Niebuhr use a phrase like "children of light & children of darkness?"

How can the children of light arm themselves with the wisdom of the children of darkness but remain free from their malice?