Short Fiction Essay: The Cask of Amontillado

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Edgar Allan Poe's The Cast of Amontillado, which takes place in the the Montresor family catacomb, is a short, fictional story about revenge. Fortunato, a man who “prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine”, has inflicted a “thousand injuries” upon Montresor, the narrator. When Fortunato “ventured upon insult,” Montresor finally “vowed revenge.” After leading Fortunato through his catacombs in search for a cask of Amontillado, Montresor exacts his revenge. He chains Fortunato to a granite wall in an “interior crypt” and “walls up the entrance of the niche.” In The Cask of Amontillado, Poe uses literary devices such as irony and symbolism to convey theme the theme of human folly.

The dialogue between Fortunato and Montresor is filled with irony. In the beginning of the story, Montresor tells the readers that “neither by word nor deed had [he] given Fortunato cause to doubt [his] good will. [He] continued, as was [his] wont, to smile in [Fortunato's] face, and [Fortunato] did not perceive that [his] smile was now at the thought of [Fortunato's] immolation” (paragraph 2). What Mo...

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