The story is set in a nameless Italian city in an unspecified year and is about the narrator's deadly revenge on a friend who, he believes, has insulted him. The story's narrator, Montresor, tells the story of the day that he took his revenge on Fortunato, a fellow nobleman, to an unspecified person who knows him very well. Angry over some unspecified insult, he plots to murder his friend during Carnival when the man is drunk, dizzy, and wearing a jester's motley.