The Cask of Amontillado

I remember being young and being in school and loving Fridays -- and yes, I realize that statement is most likely not the deepest bit of trivia I have ever shared. My perspective on Friday as a teacher is now altered from the high opinion that I once possessed of Fridays of yester-year. For Friday to an educator is the day of the week that students think belongs to them, the day that precedes Saturday as trumpets precede the arrival of a crowned head. And as such, Friday is not a real school day... No! Friday is a day for merriment, tomfoolerly, nonsense, and all sorts of other hullaballoo (do I sound like an old man, yet?).

Friday, to quote Rocko's Modern Life, is a very dangerous day. I am always especially on my guard on Fridays. They say a good deterrent is the best defense, and so it was. Today passed - for me at least - without any major incidents.

Save for the three gum chewers I caught 3rd Period. I swear, lately, I'm catching gum chewers like the Portuguese & Basques used to catch cod in the Grand Banks. I merely set out my dragnet and in they come as if eager to be caught. But I digress.

No, today was most likely the best Friday in memory. I had to send no one out, I had to "scream" at no class, I did not have to raise my voice... certainly I had the usual unpreparedness that sometimes prevails, the usual suspects and such. They were given detention, but it hardly served to phase me or to disrupt my day or that of my students. They have learned, as they well should, that I have rules and enforce them accordingly. They did not at one time enjoy it, nor do they now I should suppose, but many of them welcome it now as a penitent welcomes the absolution of a priest after confession. They learn and grow and improve as a result of it. And they seem to love me, to fear me? to respect me all the more in the wake of my punishments.

The school's English teacher was out today and I happened to be walking by the 7th period English class (I'm off everyday 7th period; it's my planning period, which is nice) at the beginning of 7th period. The students, alone, were going crazy as unmonitored students are wont to do. I entered the room and silence fell across the children as darkness might fall on a valley as the sun disappears behind a mountain in the desert. I had to say nothing, merely enter. In a calm voice, I ordered them to their seats and they complied at once. They seemed convinced that I should permit them to goof off. Hah!

Instead, I asked them to open their English books.

Seeing no lesson plan, I eyeballed the table of contents until I spotted a story that I know well: E. A. Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado," a delicious piece for the "Halloween" season that still feels as present as the gaudy Halloween decorations that persist throughout my neighborhood. North Jersey goes all out on the Halloween decorations, that's for sure. I had the students turn their pages to the story and we began.

I had to silence the first several groans as I began to talk about the cultivation of wine and what, precisely, Amontillado is. Once they had been sufficiently enlightened, the students were no more impressed (I suppose they're champagne drinkers, hm?). And then I launched into the introduction with full force as I explained the depth of hatred, of need for vengeance, that Poe's Montresor character desired against the fool Fortunato. Some students grew bored with the length of Poe's prose, but most of this class of 26 were riveted to their seats as I walked them through the imagery, taking them into the catacombs, showing them the depth of the narrator's evil and hatred for this oaf of a man who remained incapable of seeing his fate coming.

And then the climax. The students sat in stunned silence as I pantomimed the final sealing of the final brick as Fortunado was buried alive, immeured forever in dark and rank catacomb. They cringed in fear at the thought that the perfect crime, the perfect criminal, should have as his Latin motto, "Nemo me impune lacessit," or "No one strikes me with impunity." Some shivered at the thought that revenge could go so far.

When the famous ending lines of the story were read, "in pace requiescat," or "Rest in Peace," the students burst into thunderous applause. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I should not like to be an English teacher, but to be able to share something like a great work of the Western canon as "The Cask of Amontillado" with them and have them appreciate it, to be able to lead them to appreciation of it... ay me, it's days like this that make me feel like Fortunato had he been released from the catacombs.

Now... anyone for a glass of amontillado?