Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Cask of Amontillado” has a plot of one man, named Montresor, trying to enact revenge on another man, named Fortunato. After Fortunato makes one too many joking insults, Montresor tries to lure Fortunato back to his house by asking him for his expert opinion on a bottle of fine sherry. Once in his home, Montresor traps Fortunato in his wine vaults and leaves him to die. Throughout the story there are many account of irony between Montresor and Fortunato. In his take of “The Cask of Amontillado,” Joseph Kishel believes that Montresor celebrates his defeat of Fortunato by telling “the story to a presumably appreciative listener, someone capable of relishing its many ironies.” Kishel is right to assume that it takes a special someone to be able to see everything that is happening in this story. Even though each occurrence of irony is subtle and unnoticeable to Fortunato, to a reader it is powerful and enlightening about the events to come. For instance, examples of perfect verbal irony are when Montresor refers to Fortunato as a friend and worries for h...
Poe uses irony in his story to engage the reader throughout his text, build suspense and create tension. Poe’s story uses information that readers already know and consequently uses irony in order to sustain the readers interest. He uses dramatic irony, since Fortunato is unaware that Montresor attempts to kill him, but the readers know that he will. Montresor reveals early that he is seeking revenge on Fortunato, therefore, when Montresor expresses concern about Fortunato’s health in line 36, "Come," I said, with decision, "we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible. (36), the reader already knows his plan. He is just trying to trick him into believing him that he cares about him to gain his trust. He also uses verbal irony, "Enough," he said; "the cough's a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough.” (Poe37), but Fortunato already knows how he will die later on. This example illustrates how vague Fortunato is and has no clue of Montresor’s evil intentions. The situational irony Poe uses in the story is when Montresor kills Fortunato and walks out of the catacombs. Montresor says, “my heart grew sick; it was the
Irony is also used throughout this tale. The use of revenge in this story shows irony. Montressor avenges himself by fooling Fortunato into literally walking into his own grave. Fortunato pursues the "cask" which ends up being his own casket. Montressor even asks Fortunato repeatedly whether he would like to turn back.
From symbolic references to Free Mason’s to simple symbolic insinuations, Poe relies on symbolism to build horror throughout his masterpiece by engaging the reader and delivering dread. Poe uses symbolism to discredit Fortunato and symbolize his role as a fool in the story. Poe writes, “The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells.” (Poe 1109). Trent Lorcher imparts, “In short, Fortunato is dressed as a fool, a symbolic representation of what he is.” (Lorcher). Additionally, Fortunato is continually misled by Montresor to the delicious cask of Amontillado. This is a symbol of the arrogance and greed that Fortunato possesses. Fortunato is a powerful man in his own right and cannot fathom that he is in danger from Montresor. Fortunato believes that he is superior to Montresor and is entitled to the best that Montresor can offer him. The ultimate use of symbolism plays on Fortunato’s arrogance to assume that he is in no danger at all. Poe uses symbolism to great effect in The Cask of Amontillado, developing horror for the reader through careful buildup and subtle
Irony is used very often by Poe. Irony is when something occurs that is the exact opposite of how it should be or seem. Irony varies in that it may be displayed through someone’s actions or an ironic happening. An example of irony in someone’s action are in the Cask of Amontillado is when Montressor repeatedly seems concerned for Fortunato’s health, even though his real intentions are to kill him. It also may be considered ironic that Poe named the enemy of Monstressor, Fortunato. Being that Fortunato means fortunate or lucky in Italian, it is ironic that he is very unlucky in that he his buried alive in a wall.
Edgar Allan Poe wrote many wonderful stories. In many of these stories, including “ A Tell-Tale Heart”, “Cask of Amontillado” and “The masque of the Red Death”, Edgar Allan Poe utilizes irony to teach either the character or the audience a lesson. Edgar Allan Poe usually includes multiple examples of irony inside of His stories, which can provide multiple examples to reinforce Edgar Allan Poe’s ideas that he is attempting to show through the story.
Poe’s fantastic use of imagery holds an idea to the questioning of his character's motives. In “The Cask of Amontillado”, Montresor's face was covered by a black mask, he not only represents blind righteousness but also revenge. In contrast to Montresor's apparel, Fortunato wears a colorful jester costume, and gets precisely and dreadfully fooled by Montresor’s underco...
Allan Poe. My Purpose is to show the effect of the use of irony on the progress of the short story. I Suspect that use of irony in Edgar Allan Poe's short story, "The Black Cat," is one of the main points which allows the hidden character of the Narrator, and the truth of the situation to be revealed and helps the reader to comprehend the story better.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a sociopath as someone who behaves in a dangerous or violent way towards other people and does not feel guilty about such behavior. Sociopaths lack a conscience that allows people to decipher between right and wrong. In A Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe, the narrator, Montresor, is believed to be a sociopath by many. He kills his friend, Fortunado, after he literally adds insult to a thousand of injuries. Though what the insult was and the previous injuries were never revealed to the reader, it could be assumed that Montresor probably overreacted to the Fortunado’s insult. But in order to answer this question the evaluation upon his motivation, strategy, and Montresor’s feeling and emotion towards
Accordingly, Poe is well responsive to this psychological trait of the human brain. Likewise, Poe employs the perception of perversity and remorse in “The Cask of Amontillado.” The reason of burying Fortunato is not only vengeance, but also a robust reaction that is described in “The Black Cat”. There is a passionate yearning in Montresor to hurt Fortunato even if he has not made any harm to him. Although Montresor asserts that he has been injured several times by Fortunato, he cannot defy calling him “respected, admired, beloved,” admitting his “good nature,” and also calling him “noble” (Little 212). These expressions confirmed that Fortunato is a good quality person and the expression “injuries” used in the first phase of the story is simply a hyperbole that Montresor’s psyche has fabricated. Furthermore, wickedness does not come unaccompanied, but it carries itself a sense of remorse. Even if Montresor reflects himself as the diplomat of his family for deafening down rivals, he suffers remorse while walling up Fortunato. Consequently, Poe’s clasp of unreasonableness and culpability of the human mind is
Edgar Allen Poe uses irony and poetic justice all throughout “The Cask of the Amontillado”. The places where irony and poetic justice hold the most significance are the scenes where, Montresor speaks of the wronging done to him by Fortunato, where Montresor and fortunato speak of the coat of arms, and where at the very end when Montresor traps Fortunato in the catacombs and leaves him to die. These scenes clearly show the use of these two tools that Poe used to tell the story of Montresor and
The story “Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe is a short story about how the narrator, Montresor, secretly murdered his friend Fortunato because of the “insults” he believe Fortunato made towards him. Montresor, the narrator of the story, came from an old, perhaps noble family. He possessed considerable taste in wines, paintings, etc. (The Cask of Amontillado), and it is evident that he is very smart. His entire plan of revenge was so well constructed (right timing (carnival), servants out (cause no suspicion)) ((The Cask of Amontillado)) that Montresor had to be a profoundly gifted person. Although there is no doubt that Montresor possesses considerable intelligence, as a narrator, he is unreliable; due to the fact that he is narrating in first person, the lack of evidence and detail in the story, and that he is mentally ill.
In the stories “Story of an Hour”, “Everyday Use”, “The Necklace”, and “The Lottery” it is evident that irony was quite a large part of the short story. There is situational irony, which is when the situation turns out differently than expected. Also, dramatic irony is present, which is when you as a reader knows more than the character. The authors seem to base their whole story around irony to surprise their readers.
"A Cask of Amontillado" is replete with ironic statements and situations. Fortunato's very name is ironic given his horrific fate. At the beginning of the story, when Montresor divulges his theories on proper revenge, he says, "A wrong is unredressed when retibution overtakes its redresser." This is ironic (and a bit amusing) as Montresor is utterly consumed by his hatred of Fortunato. Then, during their descent into the catacombs, Montresor tries several times to con...
In the beginning of the story, the irony present can be obviously seen. The young man is constantly reminding the reader that he is sane, saying, “You fancy me mad… You should have seen how wisely I was proceeding” (Poe p. 619). This is ironic, because his insanity is clearly present due to the fact that his only reason for wanting to kill the old man is the way the man’s eye stares at the narrator in the dark. His paranoia from the way the old man’s eye looks at him has started to drive him insane, causing him to have dark thoughts of murdering him. The narrator’s reasons for why he is not insane for wanting to murder the old man are guided by paranoia and madness, which is ironic because he is doing the exact opposite of what he is trying to do. He further proves his madness by giving reasons to why he is not mad. Witherington states that the narrator’s arguments for why he is not mad “fall apart with every ‘reason’ he gives the listener” (p. 471). The young man does not ...
In the book Hamlet by Shakespeare, irony is used numerous times in order to give the reader insight on what is going on. As stated in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, irony is an action that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play. If this strategy were not included in this drama, it would take away the whole purpose. This play would consist of no suspense and would be extremely boring to the reader because the characters would know as much as the readers know. This allows for incite to what can happen in the future or what has happened in the past. The irony in this play ultimately revolves around Hamlet and his plan to achieve revenge with Claudius. From the play that Hamlet organizes about the death of his father to the ending where Fortinbras happened to be at the right place at the right time to take over the throne in Denmark; this paper examines the cases in where irony is used to show how Hamlet is preventing his murderer uncle from getting away with his fathers death.