Literary Techniques Used In The Cask Of Amontillado

Did you know that because of Edgar Allan Poe’s tragic life, he started writing horror stories? Although he wrote horror stories and was not admired for them during his lifetime, his stories became very popular amongst both writers and readers. Poe’s dark way of writing encouraged many other writers. Writers studied his style of writing and found that he used various types or writing techniques. Some of the different types of writing techniques Poe used in his short story “The Cask of Amontillado”, includes irony, foreshadowing, and dark diction.

Edgar Allan Poe uses a lot of irony within his short story, “The Cask of Amontillado”, to engage the readers and provide some dark humor to the story. One form the author uses, is situational irony,

There are many instances of Poe using foreshadowing. He uses foreshadowing when he tells his servants, “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 60). Poe uses foreshadowing in the previous example because Montresor tells his servants to remain home, which hints that there is something Montresor is doing that he does not want other people to know what is going on. This example of foreshadowing makes the readers think about why would Montresor not want other people to know that he is going with Fortunato. Poe uses multiple other examples of foreshadowing throughout his story. The second example Poe uses of foreshadowing, includes; "My friend, no. It is not the engagement, but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted.” (Poe 59). This is foreshadowing that Fortunato thinks he will not die of such a simple matter; when in the end, he was killed by the person he trusted and due to the weakness of his sickness. The final example of foreshadowing displayed by Poe in the “Cask of Amontillado”, states, “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 59). The previous example foreshadows that because Fortunato was wearing clothes resembling a clown or jester, he will be fooled; which happened later in the story. Foreshadowing was a major

Poe uses the words “deep crypt” which make the readers wonder how long the crypt is and what’s at the end. Poe also uses diction to portray danger in his short story. For instance, “and, indeed, I had no intention of alarming you unnecessarily; but you should use all proper caution”’ (Poe, 61). Poe’s use of the words “alarming” and “caution” show cautious diction and causes the readers to feel threatened and endangered. Finally, Poe uses saddening diction to show unfortunate events unravel. Poe shows this by using “moaning” and “cry” in the sentence, “The earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning cry from the depth of the recess” (Poe 63). When Poe used “moaning” ary and “cry”, he set a gloomy mood which made the readers feel sad for Fortunato. Ultimately, diction plays a key part in moving along the story and keeping the readers engaged both mentally and