Temptation

An Audience of One
Aug 8, 2017 · 3 min read

Good is usually recognizable, but evil takes many forms.

Temptation is often a harbinger of sin or some misdeed, leading ultimately to ruin. Many works describe the eternal struggle waged by the forces of good and evil on the battlefield and in the souls of men. “The Cask of Amontillado,” “A Poison Tree” and “The Fall” display a few common temptations such as wine, revenge, and knowledge, and reveal how there is no real difference between any of them.

“The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allen Poe is a textbook example of how giving in to temptation brings nothing but misfortune. As a result, Fortunato is one of the best-named characters in all of literature, for he is an unwitting victim to at least two of the deadly sins- hubris and gluttony. His first appearance is in the middle of a carnival, just after Montresor has finished brooding about the unspecified slights Fortunato has made against him. Montresor quickly takes advantage of the situation, and lures his unwitting victim away from the party with wine and flattery.

While alcohol and a fondness for compliments are both corrosive in excessive amounts, they can both be waved off by one with sufficient willpower. Neither character demonstrates such discipline, however. Montresor does not even consider not killing Fortunato once the opportunity arises. It is not until a single brick remains to complete the wall that he shows any sign of remorse, when his “heart grew sick on account of the dampness of the catacombs.” Thus as the story ends with Fortunato’s life, we never find out if taking revenge helps Montresor find the peace he wishes upon his foe.

Alcohol and revenge literally and metaphorically tempt people into doing the wrong thing. They are also poisons that kill whatever they touch. However, William Blake is probably not talking about alcohol in his poem “A Poison Tree.” The speaker in this poem starts by reconciling differences with a friend, just before he comes into conflict with another “foe,” and hatches his own plan to take revenge. Like Montresor, he gives no sign of his malicious intentions as he turns his “fears,” “tears,” “smiles” and “wiles” toward growing a beautiful tree with a terrible secret. Eventually, it “bore an apple bright” which his foe tries to steal one night, only to discover an inescapable plight. The foe is unable to resist the temptation to steal the apple from his neighbor, and once again, the speaker gives into his darkest of desires.

Temptation appears in many forms, but perhaps the best-known example is yet another stolen apple in “The Fall” from The Book of Genesis. In the beginning, God created the earth, and Adam and Eve took it from there. He created a paradise called the Garden of Eden, and he laid out certain rules for them to follow if they wanted to continue living in this utopia. One of these: “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.” Adam and Eve are very clear on this rule and respect it. It is not until the serpent says to Eve, “you will be like God, knowing good and evil” that she even considers breaking the rules. Eventually the temptation to know overcomes her, and she eats the fruit and shares some with Adam. Even when the consequences of taking a particular action are immediate and stated outright, this story shows that people have been unable to overcome temptation of all kinds for as long as they have been doomed to walk the earth.

The takeaway from “The Cask of Amontillado,” “A Poison Tree” and “The Fall” is not that humans fail spectacularly to resist temptation. Rather they are meant to demonstrate that the most important decisions are often made in moments, without a chance to fully consider the ramifications. Temptation may be impossible to avoid. However, the benefits of resisting it become obvious after a few mistakes grant people the knowledge to make better decisions.

An Audience of One

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An audience of one person is more than enough.

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