More handpicked essays just for you.
Literary elements in the story the cask of amontillado
Literary elements in the story the cask of amontillado
Literary elements in the story the cask of amontillado
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In Edgar Allen Poe’s gothic story, The Cask of Amontillado, He uses many fears to make the reader very scared. To do so, he uses a lot of imagery, tone, and mood in his writing to make you feel as if you are in the same setting as the characters. In this particular story he makes the antagonist also the narrator, seem nice in the beginning, then he gives him more flare and make him go crazy towards the fortunato, murdering him. The fortunato was his old friend at the carnival, who was to taste a wine for him. In the story Poe uses these primal fears to make it more exciting, and it sure works. Edgar Allen Poe writes that where they go in the catacombs, it’s very dark, making darkness one of those fears. With using the darkness he makes a very gloomy and almost frightening mood. It is incredible! Imagery also, helps with Poe writing “There we could see the stone steps going down into the darkness. ” (69) Just that quote alone, helps create the very dreadful setting that follows later on, and adds suspense. Poe then writes, “He looked uncertainly around him, trying to see through the thick …show more content…
darkness which pushed in around us.”(70) then, the crypt got smaller and human remains littered around. How creepy is that! Most people also, have a fear of the dark themselves, which helps expand on the setting even more. Next, Poe adds in on the fear of darkness by saying further that, there is a very cold climate in the crypt.
He adds the weather to the setting to create a very chilly and spooky one. The antagonist explains the weather when he says, “It is not far now. But I can see you are trembling with the cold” (Poe 70). It must have been freezing! Most people think that Poe wrote this to further the setting and maybe a little of foreshadowing of if he continues on, into the catacombs. Also, down in the catacombs, The fortunato has a cold and coughs a bunch, making the antagonist concerned for his health, he offers the fortunato wine. The last he will ever drink. In addition, after the antagonist murders the fortunato in the end, Poe writes “ My heart grew sick; must have been the cold” (Poe 72). It makes you feel as if you were the antagonist and in that
setting. Poe then uses a fear that everyone has and that is the fear of murder. When the narrator starts to trap the fortunato in the stone, you feel tremendously scared for the fortunatos well being. Furthermore, when the narrator starts calling for the fortunato in a worried tone and doesn’t get a response, it gets intense. “May he rest in peace.” (Poe 72) . Making you know that something is truly wrong. Then to form more gloom to the death Poe wrote “ I put the old bones again in a pile against the wall. For half a century now no human hand has touched them.”(Poe 72). Meaning the fortunato’s body was never discovered. Making the murderer still on the prowl. All of the fears that the author chose to use, add up and make The Cask of Amontillado a great read! Poe is frankly the best gothic writer, creating perfect settings, elements of mystery, and many fears to scare the readers. While doing so, he makes a set a great thrilling mood, mixed with a narrator's good tone it fabricates a masterpiece. Readers, recommend all of Poe’s stories, because they are all real classics.
The setting is an important part of any story, whether it be a poem or a novel. The setting consists of all the places and/or things surrounding the character at any moment through any literary or visual media. A literary setting is often full of details and vivid imagery due to the lack of visual aids that are present in videos and movies. These details often take paragraphs to describe single settings to give the reader an imaginary vision of what the area would look like. Edgar Allan Poe is no exception to these rules and he clearly writes out the setting for his short stories and poems. Poe does an excellent job of using details to describe the setting of his stories and shows great care in choosing the wording of each description he makes to display his exact intentions for each descriptive setting. In the short story, “The Cask of Amontillado,” by Poe, the setting has a direct correlation with the mood in the story. The further into the story you read, the deeper and darker the surroundings of the two main characters get, just like the main plot of the story.
“The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe is a mystery that offers great suspense and interest. This is because of the irony that Poe creates and the setting that makes a dangerous mood and foreshadows the victim’s death. In the beginning of the story, the narrator meets a man named Fortunato at an Italian carnival with the intentions for murdering him in the foreseeable future. The narrator talks with Fortunato saying, “My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met,” (1). These first words spoken by the narrator show verbal irony because the narrator is not really saying that they met luckily. In fact, as I stated before, the narrator was planning this encounter, with the plan ending with Fortunato’s death. This proves to be suspenseful for the reader because they want to discover Fortunato’s actual fate while wishing they could tell Fortunato of the
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” is a short psychological thriller. The murder of Fortunato haunts Montresor so greatly that he feels the compulsion to tell the story some fifty years after the fact. He appears to be in the late stages of life desperately attempting to remove the stain of murder from his mind. That it is still so fresh and rich in specifics is proof that it has plagued him, “Perhaps the most chilling aspect of reading Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ for the first time is not the gruesome tale that Montresor relates, but the sudden, unpredictable, understated revelation that the murder, recounted in its every lurid detail, occurred not yesterday or last week, but a full fifty years prior to the telling” (DiSanza).
The Case of Amontallido In a psychological perspective, the author’s life is linked with the behavior and motivations of characters in the story. The author’s name is Edgar Allan’s Poe who portrayed his self in his writing. The miserable life of Poe can be measured through “The Cask of Amontillado” in which character named “Montressor” showed indifferent feeling towards his victim. After burying Fortunado alive, Montressor felt bad after burying his victim alive but then he attributes the feeling of guilt to the damp catacombs.
The story “The Cask of Amontillado” is written in first person point of view and this story is fairly simple to understand. This story is affected by the narration when looking at what the narrator's focus is, the narrator’s thoughts or opinions, and how the reader interprets the story.
...ontresor's sociable facade, then the catacombs below symbolize the hate within him. Poe gives explicit descriptions fo the foul caverns. They are "insufferably damp . . . encrusted with nitre." The "founess of the air" nearly extinguishes their torches. Poe describes the "white web-work which gleams from these cavern walls." Clearly Poe's desired efect is to expose the evil that consumes from within.
In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” Montresor sets out on a vengeful mission that will end Fortunato’s life in an untimely fate. Montresor appeals to Fortunato’s love for wine to tempt the unsuspecting fellow to his impending doom. While Montresor tricks the foolish Fortunato frightfully, it is ultimately Fortunato’s pride that leads to his demise in the crypt. Poe uses several literary devices to foreshadow this murderous exploit of Montresor. Through the use of irony, symbolism, and imagery, the story entices readers to delve into the relationships and differences between Montresor and Fortunato.
Edgar Allen Poe’s tale of murder and revenge, “The Cask of Amontillado”, offers a unique perspective into the mind of a deranged murderer. The effectiveness of the story is largely due to its first person point of view, which allows the reader a deeper involvement into the thoughts and motivations of the protagonist, Montresor. The first person narration results in an unbalanced viewpoint on the central conflict of the story, man versus man, because the reader knows very little about the thoughts of the antagonist, Fortunato. The setting of “The Cask of Amontillado”, in the dark catacombs of Montresor’s wine cellar, contributes to the story’s theme that some people will go to great lengths to fanatically defend their honor.
Poe uses a dark setting, the characters situation, and 1st person narration to convey suspense, fear and mystery. Poe expresses the gothic element of a dark setting in the entire story. During the Spanish Inquisition, a man is sentenced to death and sent to a chamber. He is weak, scared, and alone. The man awoke to find himself in a pitch black, damp and cold room.
The weather is used as a pathetic fallacy to represent the mood of the characters. This is evident when Shelley writes ‘The darkness and storms increased every minute and the thunder bursts with a terrific crash… KRAKKA-DOOM!’ This demonstrates Frankenstein’s mood according to the presence of the monster and the onomatopoeia is used to intensify the scene and familiarize the reader’s senses. Gothic novels exploit the terrifying power of sound to evoke emotion and suspense. The reader is able to associate unfortunate events with depraved weather therefore, if a storm or lightening occurs, the readers suspicion arouses. This is evident before Henry’ s murder, “My only resource was to drive before the wind. I had no compass and the sun was of little benefit to me”, identifies that something bad will happen. In Poe’s novel, we notice that the ‘crack widened rapidly and then the wind suddenly blew’ reinforcing the symbolism of weather coinciding with unfortunate events. The beginning of the latter quote describes ‘the very thin crack’ that represents the disruption in the unity of the family. This is the disruption that ultimately tears the family and the mansion in a supernatural occurrence. This demonstrates how authors use reoccurring themes to represent different ideas and
Edgar Allen Poe was one of the most fanciful American poets and short story writers of the nineteenth century. His work always kept us wanting He incorporates all of the special elements to create a horror story like his famous “The Cask of Amontillado.” This is a story about Montresor, the narrator, seeking revenge on his so called friend, Fortunado. It was carnival season and everyone had dressed up.
It creates a sense of fear as the narrator’s nerves carry into the reader’s nerves. Poe also uses first person point-of-view when telling this story, which allows him to state his own thoughts and feelings. It also allows him to go more in depth with descriptions, and that creates a more fearful story as it allows the reader to connect with the story more. The other way that Poe creates dread and fear in his writing is by continuously trying to convince the ready that he is indeed not crazy. He does this by starting the story out exclaiming, “How, then, am I mad?
A staple of gothic literature is the eeriness and creepiness of the setting. Often a run-down castle or monastery, in Poe’s short story The Cask of Amontillado, the setting is the catacomb of the protagonist’s, Montressor, family. The crypt is damp and narrow, and always leads downward. The possibility for freedom decreases as the characters move deeper and deeper into the catacomb. They venture so far into the catacomb that air is hard to come by and they have difficulty breathing.
Poe was able to make a first point of view with the main character in the story who uses a strong sense of dramatic irony without ever disclaiming the sadistic act of the main character, which to me is far beyond my thought process when in come to creating and imaginary. A good example of this is when Montresor says "I had scarcely laid the first tier of the masonry" (431) now this in many cases would mean nothing by the quote but within the story he's describing the way he was hiding Fortunato body with details of what he was doing and the sounds around him but in portrayed in a way that he would never give up the actual actions that he was doing, but simply telling of the steps in which he was doing creating that sense of dramatic irony at cognitive
Poe starts out with a man, by the name of Montresor, wanting revenge on another man, named Fortunato. Most of the story takes place deep in the Montresor family catacombs. As Montresor lures Fortunato into the catacombs, he chains Fortunato up to a small hole in a wall, bricks it over, and leaves Fortunato to die. Even through the traits of anger, hatred, and revenge, as the story progresses on, Montresor, the main character in “The Cask of Amontillado”, starts to show signs of feeling guilty for wanting to murder Fortunato.