Examples Of Irony In The Cask Of Amontillado

Irony is a literary device in which the actual meaning is the opposite from the implied meaning. Irony is used in all types of literature because of its extreme importance to a story. Irony deepens the meaning of literature and impacts our understanding of it. Irony plays a pivotal role in “The Cask of Amontillado” because it captures the attention of the readers and helps create an exciting plot that generates curiosity. Poe uses irony to help make us feel like we are part of the story because we know more than the characters. An example of irony used immediately in the story is the name Fortunato. Fortunato means fortunate, but as we know Fortunato is not very fortunate at the end of the story. Poe uses three types of irony throughout his

In “The Cask of Amontillado” Fortunato gets lead to his death because of Montresor’s verbal irony and reverse psychology. Montresor tells Fortunato “Come, we will go back; your health is precious.” (Poe 235) Montresor knows by implying Fortunato can not handle the catacombs and insisting they go back, Fortunato will want to stay. This contributes to the thrilling plot because it draws Fortunato deeper into the catacombs and closer to his death. In the beginning of the story Montresor says, “My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met”(Poe 234) trying to make Fortunato feel comfortable and trust him. This is verbal irony because Fortunato is not luckily met by Montresor for the reasons he believes, Fortunato is “luckily met” by Montresor because Montresor has devised a plan to murder him. This begins the dark journey to Fortunato’s death, and begins the exciting story. Verbal irony is the most used form of irony in the story and can be found included into the other types or irony such as

The setting of the story is greatly influenced by situational irony because Montresor made sure there was no one around to watch him commit murder. He said, “There were no attendants at home; they had absconded to make merry in honor of the time. I had told them that I should not return until the morning and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house.”(Poe 235) We would expect there to be servants around and for Montresor not to go home until the next day, but none of this happens. Instead Montresor returns to a house full of no servants, just like he wanted. This was the ideal setting to commit a crime. Besides using situational irony Montresor also uses reverse psychology to draw his servants away from the house. If not for this use of irony we would not of had a setting that made the story fascinating and created a dark, evil mood. This dark and evil mood created the perfect environment for Fortunato to be killed in. After committing the murder Montresor says, “My heart grew sick” (Poe 237 ) meaning that he doesn’t feel well. However, this is not because he just committed murder and now feels guilty, it’s because of the damp, cold, and moldy atmosphere of the catacombs. These unexpected outcomes are what makes “The Cask of Amontillado” a creative story full