The Use Of Irony In Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven

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The narrator in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" describes his terrorized, dream-like reaction to the tapping at his door in vivid detail: "Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before."- Edgar Allen Poe. Much like the narrator Poe is really the first writer to dream up the idea of a story that is made to shock his readers. With that being said, Poe is well recognized by readers because of this signature writing style that portrays a sort of nightmarish reality where nothing is certain to be true. This is achieved by his use of an unreliable narrator, amusing, dark humor, and ominous moods are created through the setting.
In most of Edgar Allan Poe's stories …show more content…

An example from "The Cask of Amontillado" of this type of irony is when Fortunato ask Montresor to prove that he is a mason and he, "...produc(es) from beneath the folds of my roquelaire a trowel." But in the story Fortunato is referring to a secret club not an actual mason. And later on in the story the readers learn that this tool is what laid the brick of the wall that Fortunato body is trapped behind. In "The Raven" this type of irony keeps repeating itself because pf the lines, "Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'" the readers know that birds can not talk so they do not expect that the bird will start talking. Though the narrator does not catch on that the bird will only say the one word. But the readers know that if he wants his answers to the questions he is going to have to start asking the question in a way that makes it useful for him. Poe also uses verbal irony, this is when some one says something while meaning the other like in "The Cask of Amontillado," "'...your health is precious.'" Montresor is going to kill him anyway so Fortunato's health is not a concern to Montresor. The irony he uses is meant to shock both the readers and the characters making them either horrified at the human race or laugh at how absurd the …show more content…

The mood is similar to the feeling when you are home alone and you hear something on the other side of the house. It is most common in Edgar Allan Poe's story the "The Cask of Amontillado" and his poem "The Raven." An example of this in "The Cask of Amontillado" is, "Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris." Imagine walking through a sort of hallway filled to the ceiling with human skeletons with just a torch that throws shadows across every wall. "Once upon a midnight dreary... As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door... here I opened wide the door;— Darkness there and nothing more." This example from the poem "The Raven" shows that sort of fear, because the readers think some one is actually at the door at midnight which is creepy enough as it is. Then you come to find out that no one is at the door. And that it was actually a raven that some how made it outside in that time span and found the window to that same room. Poe usage of mood gets to the root of what scares every human in the world, and that is what you don’t know or can not see. Poe does a great job of playing on that

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