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Irony In The Cask Of Amontillado

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Edgar Allen Poe was an American writer in the 1800s, which was best known for his short stories, in particular his stories of mystery. “The Cask of Amontillado” is a story of revenge, in which the main character Montresor is fed up with repeatedly being humiliated and insulted by a character named Fortunato so he devises a well thought out plan to kill him. Poe masterfully used symbolism and irony in many of his stories. Poe symbolizes many things in “The Cask of Amontillado”, and uses three types of irony in the story, which is dramatic irony, situational irony, and verbal irony. One of the first symbols used in the story is the setting; “the supreme madness of carnival season” which to many is a joyful time, but to Montresor it is the …show more content…

Poe uses the Fortunato’s name as irony because he name means fortunate when in fact he is anything but fortunate. Also when Montresor says “My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met.” When in reality it is him who is lucky because he will be benefiting by killing Fortunato. Further into the story Montresor seems to be worried about Fortunato’s health because he is profusely coughing so Montresor says “we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was.” Montresor here is merely using reverse psychology because he has no intention of going back nor does he care about Fortunato’s health. Fortunato is a fool once again and fails to realize that so he says “the cough's a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough.” So they decide to proceed to find this cask of “amontillado”. As you can see its almost as if Montresor is envious of Fortunato when he says “as I once was” which is referring to his wealth, admiration, happiness and etc. Poe symbolizes many things and displays many different types of irony throughout “The Cask of Amontillado” and I only touched on a few of those. Poe displays these throughout the story to intensify details of the story and to also make it more understandable and interesting. This has different effects on the readers because one reader

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