In spite of what his supporters may believe, Donald Trump's bigoted rhetoric has written almost every joke made at his expense. In a rare exception from the cleverest corners of Tumblr, an Edgar Allan Poe reference has become the perfect response to Donald Trump's rhetoric. Who would have thought that, 170 years after it was first published, "The Cask of Amontillado" would be so popular among social media users?
For those who haven't read it, "The Cask of Amontillado" centers on a wealthy narrator named Montresor, who decides to get revenge on Fortunato for an insult. Fortunato is a lush, and, by the time Montresor meets up with him at a festival, he is already drunk. Montresor invites Fortunato to his wine cellar — a catacomb — to sample his cask of Amontillado sherry. Once Fortunato is in the cellar, Montresor lures him into a niche in the wall, where he chains him. Montresor then seals up the wall with bricks and mortar while Fortunato is still alive.
Tumblr users have seized on the chance to joke about Trump's plan to build a wall along the Mexican border. Funlittleinteresting likes a to mix history with their literature, referencing both Poe's short story and the Berlin Wall. Dogvillage's post, which sports more than 6,000 notes at the time of this writing, reads: "*promises to build a wall for donald trump but only if he drinks some wine in this old cellar*." A more popular — and on-the-nose — post from bubonickitten has earned more than 37,000 notes since Oct. 9 and reads: "someone with a wine cellar please invite trump to their wine cellar with promises of vintage amontillado." And Argumate writes a charming little fantasy:
maybe the real October Surprise is going to be at Obama’s masked Halloween party when he offers to show Trump the cask of Amontillado he keeps hidden deep in the vaults beneath the White House
Well, I know what I'm asking the Great Pumpkin for this year.
