Exploring Irony in Poe's 'The Cask of Amontillado'

“The Cask of Amontillado” When looking for a story full of irony, suspense, mystery readers can always turn to basically any story written by the “father of the detective stories”, Edgar Allan Poe (Work Cited – Biography website). In what is considered his most perfect short story of all, “The Cask of Amontillado” Poe integrates irony even in the tiniest aspects if the entire story (Work Cite – Cliff Notes). For the reader to completely understand Poe’s creepy, perfectionist style they should know some background on Poe himself. Starting from a young age Poe experienced multiple tragic events that drastically changed not only his life, but his outlook on life (Work cited – biography). With so many negative things surrounding Poe it is no

Though Poe’s fame did not come in his life time he has truly been an inspiration and his writing style a model for writers today (work – cited poe museum). Analyzing Poe’s work takes time to understand what is happening and why the characters has the motivations for the task they did, this becomes very apparent in Poe’s “most perfect short story”, “The Cask of Amontillado” (work cited – cliff notes). Irony, the literary device that may trick readers into thinking the outcome may be something completely different than what the author has planned (Work Cited – literary device website). Edgar Allan Poe shows off that he is a master of using irony in the short story, “The Cask of Amontillado”. Starting from the very line in a character’s name, Fortunato (Work cited – story). The name means “the fortunate one”, the irony becomes apparent when Montresor’s evil plan is revealed (Work cited – cliffs notes). Poe moves quickly with adding more irony into

In “The Cask of Amontillado” Poe writes from Montresor’s point of view (work cited – grade saver). In general the villains are not the ones to tell the story, but this makes the story far more sinister because there is no trace of regret or sympathy from Montresor (work cited – poe decoder). The audience is unaware why Montresor is telling of his evil actions fifty years after they occurred, perhaps he is so old he no longer fears punishment or maybe he is on his deathbed and wants people to know what he has done (work cited – grade saver). Another theory, Montresor is telling this morbid story someone in confidence (work cited – grade saver). The audience is given no background information on Montresor and Fortunato, only that Montresor has been insulted greatly by Fortunato and wants the ultimate revenge (work cited- story). Though the reader never finds out what truly happened between the two the fact that Montresor is the narrator adds to the suspense and mystery of the entire short story (work cited – poe