The Cask of amontillado
Midway through Episode 5, just as Helen Jones (Young Woman) is quickly falling for Richard Roe (1st Man) in a speakeasy, another man is flirting with a much younger boy. During this conversation, the man raves about amontillado and briefly mentions Poe. This small hint at Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado underlines the feeling of entrapment that exists throughout all of Machinal. In Poe’s short story, his main character Montresor has been insulted by the misnamed Fortunato. In a cruel act of revenge, Montresor tricks Fortunato into following him down into his catacombs in search for some amontillado. Once they are deep enough, Montresor chains Fortunato to the wall and bricks up the only doorway, trapping him within the stone forever.
In the story, Montresor's family crest depicts a heel crushing a snake while the snake bites the heel. The crest symbolizes how Montresor and Fortunato simultaneously destroy each other. This too, mirrors Treadwell's Machinal in that the Young Woman and her Husband are the source of each other's demise. By trapping her, the Husband drives her to the brink of insanity, and she retaliates by murdering him in his sleep. However, the Young Woman will eventually be caught and executed for her crime. |