In “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, the main character, Montresor, leads his enemy, Fortunato, into his catacombs, and there he buries him alive by locking it in a niche. in the wall; Poe gives no real reason for this, except to say that Montresor was "insulted" in some way. In his science fiction work "Usher II", Ray Bradbury adopts many of Poe's works to create his story, including pieces from "TCoA". What sets Bradbury's work apart from other authors who borrow works and reinvent them (Gregory Maguire's Wicked, Geraldine Brooks' March, and Peter Carrey's Jack Maggs, for example) is that "Usher II," in its own way imaginative, tries to be one with its predecessor. Bradbury seeks to retain Poe's love of the double and the secret (gothic mentalities where the reader is supposed to be a little uncertain about what he is reading and what is happening) while adding, notably about "TCoA" , the things that Poe never cared much about: a beginning, an end and a reason, thus making "Usher II" not only a tribute to Poe's work, but also a companion piece whose beating heart resides in the original work. Poe, according to Professor Epstein of the Queens College English Department, wrote for the climax, got you there, then left; examples of this can be found in "The Black Cat" and "The Tell-Tale Heart", where Poe stops just before the cops are about to put the chains on the narrators, and, as it will shown below, in “TCoA.” In "The Philosophy of Composition", Poe writes, regarding the structure of his stories: "It is only by having constantly in mind the denouement [the final revelation showing the outcome, or denouement, of the 'plot] that we can give a plot its indispensable air of consequence, or causality, by my...... middle of paper... took Poe's "TCoA" as a whole, as 'he is, and made it his own by tinkering around the edges, giving it's a beginning and, because the main character has known reasons for doing what he does, a fitting conclusion that doesn't give the reader the feeling of having been pushed to the top of a mountain and then left there to come back down. themselves. In “Usher II,” Bradbury takes Poe's masked characters and lifts them up for the reader (if not for the characters, who must die because they don't know Poe). Bradbury did not steal Poe's work, nor did he alter its effect; he, instead, added his own sly creativity to the work of a master storyteller by exposing what already existed. I think even Poe, who so valued originality, would have been amused by Bradbury's account of his work. (Either that or lead him into dark, dusty catacombs.).)