The Cask Of Amontillado Mood Analysis

While most may not realize, the smallest details are the reason as to how the audience engages towards a story. Little comments or details that get added throughout the story are what pieces the mood together. In “The Cask of Amontillado,” author Edgar Allan Poe sets the tone by the setting, the characterization, and the irony aspect of the short story, creating an eerie and suspicious overall mood.

The setting that Poe uses throughout the story makes an eerie and suspicious mood for the audience. Montresor first introduced himself in a friendly atmosphere. As it states in the text, “It was about dusk one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season that I encountered my friend” (344). Montresor begins the conversation off by calling Fortunato his friend to create a soothing and welcoming environment, even though it was not. An additional example of how setting description contributes to the eerie mood, Montresor and Fortunato walking into the dungeon alone, sets it as well. The mood is set off with, “We had passed through walls of piled bones, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost recesses of the catacombs” (348). This symbolized that the mood was eerie by describing the setting of bones and such, which set that mood in the reader’s mind as the author was setting the tone. To close, the setting that Poe uses throughout the story makes an eerie and suspicious mood for the audience.

Also, the characterization that Poe conveys reveals the eerie and suspicious mood. Montresor does not know his limits and does not have his boundaries with his surrounding people, specifically, Fortunato. “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge” (344). In cause of Fortunato’s insults to Montresor, he will hold revenge against Fortunato by manipulating and planning to kill him, just because of an insult. He does not know the boundary between murder and and an insult. To add on, Montresor is a cold person physically and mentally and isn’t even phased at what he is doing; he acts as if he is emotionless or heartless. Montresor confesses his own fancy grew warm with the Medoc when he saw Fortunato’s eyes sparkle with wine (348). The fact that he is feeling joy from watching Fortunato grow more drunk than he already is makes the audience believe that Montresor has no sympathy toward Fortunato, making him emotionless or heartless, as stated earlier. Altogether, that makes characterization a major point in what creates the eerie and suspicious mood for the reader.
Furthermore, irony that the author hands to the audience displays the eerie and suspicious feeling to the story.

The things Montresor persuaded Fortunato to do led to the irony aspect of the story. Montresor persuaded Fortunato to go in the vault when Fortunato insisted that it would be too cold by saying that the cold was merely nothing (346). Montresor’s technique to pursue Fortunato to go into the dungeon is one reason why irony plays a role to the eerie feeling of the story because when they finally go down into the dungeon, it was cold to a point where he used wine as part of his plot to bring warmth. Secondly, Montresor has Fortunato so wound up in the thought of seeing his dungeon and drinking the wine. Fortunato wonders if his wife and friends will be waiting for him, but decides to dismiss that thought to stay down in the dungeon with Montresor (351). When Fortunato completely disregards his wife and friends for a dungeon and, what seemed to be at the time, his good friend, that signals that all he cares about is this vault and wine that Montresor has introduced him to, leaving that suspicious mood that the audience feels. To conclude, the irony that the author hands to the audience displays the eerie and suspicious feeling to the story and contributes to the mood.

In “The Cask of Amontillado,” author Edgar Allan Poe sets the tone of the short story by the setting, the characterization, and the irony aspect of the story. Poe, as the author, only lays out the tone, leaving

the mood up to the reader. With these three techniques, the mood is also laid out for the audience. In reality, it is not laid out by the author; the mood is laid out because of our inferences based on the author’s tone. The audience creates the mood, not from the author, but from technique.