Irony In The Cask Of Amontillado And Young Goodman Brown

There are three different types of irony: situational, verbal, and dramatic. These types of irony are presented in The Cask of Amontillado written by Edgar Allen Poe and Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The stories share similar ironies, but they also differentiate with each other. The Cask of Amontillado and Young Goodman Brown both consist of irony that is spread throughout the story. Situational irony is when a situation turns out differently than expected. This type of irony expresses itself in both stories, but they contrast with one another. For example, at the end of The Cask of Amontillado, Montresor uncovers that the murder of Fortunato occurred fifty years ago by saying, “For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat!” In Young Goodman Brown, readers learn that Goodman

Both of them use it in the character’s names such as Faith, Goody Cloyse, and Fortunato. Faith means trust and in Young Goodman Brown, she is seen at the meeting with the fiend worshippers (12). After experiencing this, Brown loses all trust in his wife. Also, Goody Cloyse is another character that is actually named after a real person involved with the witch trials. One more example is Fortunato, which means fortunate in Italian. Fortunato experiences death at the end of The Cask of Amontillado and is rather unfortunate (13).

There is a huge difference in the use of dramatic irony in each of the stories. For instance, dramatic irony is nowhere to be found in Young Goodman Brown, but The Cask of Amontillado displays a vast amount of it. One example is “...the cough’s a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough,” said Fortunato (8). From this, it implies that Fortunato is slowly dying. Another example is Montresor uncovers the folds of his roquelaire and reveals a trowel (10). Fortunato is not aware of Montresor’s plan of murdering him and readers would already know his