Essay about The Setting of The Cask of Amontillado

Edgar Allan Poe was an American short-story writer and a poet. He wrote “The Cask Of Amontillado” in 1846. The story is a mysterious tale. The tale was first published in the magazine Godey’s Lady Book. “Poe’s masterful use of irony and first person narrative combined to evoke a sense of horror in the reader”(Riggs, 22). The tale is about revenge, murder and torture.

The idea of dusk gives a sense of darkness to the story; it adds to the obscure and lurid atmosphere Poe intends to produce. Aside from that, the story begins in a carnival (866, par. 4). Typically, carnivals are colorful and chaotic. This gives contrast and emphasis to the further proceedings that come in the

In the final stanza Poe gives the final description and perhaps epithet for the haunted palace. As uninhabitable and desolate a landscape that is described, there however are still travelers in the valley, or still thoughts in this mind. “And travelers now within that valley, Through the red-litten windows see/ Vast forms the move fantastically/ to a discordant melody.” His mind can only look out “red-litten windows," or in other words bloodshot eyes, that are weary

Edgar Allan Poe is a famous writer in writing detective stories and horror stories. One of his horror stories, “The Cask of Amontillado” was talking about how a man took his revenge to his friend. However, to look deeply in this story, I found that this story was not just simply a horror tale about how a man gets his revenge in the safest way. Instead, it also demonstrates much irony in several areas: the title, the event, the season, the costume, the environment, the characters’ personalities, a man’s dignity and cockiness and at the end, the public order. he are

     In “The Cask of Amontillado” Edgar Allan Poe takes us on a journey into the mind of a mad man. The story relates a horrible revenge made even more horrible by the fact that the vengeance is being taken when no real offense had been given. In a short space and with ultimate technical skill, Poe creates a nightmare, guaranteed to give the reader a sleepless night.

First off, Poe’s use of setting causes a completely different mood within the events that occur. The whole story takes place “during the supreme madness of a carnival,” so Montresor finds this a quality event to engage with Fortunato (372). At the carnival, the streets are full of intoxicated people, which causes no one would ever think

The " Cask of Amontillado" is a story about revenge. To display revenge in this story, Poe uses mood and suspense to display that revenge can lead to negative intentions. Mood is a feeling that is conveyed to the reader through literary work. Suspense is a state or feeling of excited or anxious uncertainty about what may happen. In the “Cask of Amontillado” Poe uses mood and suspense to display that revenge can make you lose your humanity.

It is Edgar Allan Poe's intense use of symbolism and irony throughout the Cask of Amontillado that establishes the short story as an indeed interesting candidate worthy of thorough analysis. The skillful use of these devices are utilized by the author to create this horrific and suspenseful masterpiece.

All of these descriptions that Poe creates through conversation between the characters and the details we are pulled along through the story, much as Fortunado is pulled along through the catacombs, where we all see his demise. Montresor eventually chains Fortunado to the wall and build up the cask that he will forever be in, alluding to the talk of the mason background of Montresor’s family. At the end Montresor thinks to himself, “my heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so,” (Poe

"I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong." With these ferverous words from the introductory paragraph of Edgar Allan Poe's Cask of Amontillado, the story of Montresor's revenge begins. Poe repeatedly stresses the need for revenge due to bitterness and resentment in Montresor's character towards Fortunato, but more importantly, stress is placed on revenge by which the victim realizes their injustice towards the redresser. Unfortunately, it seems that Montresor is denied this pure and encompassing revenge when his victim,

For the sake of the “unity of effect”, Poe uses setting for the purpose of conceiving a sinister mood. As Montresor and Fortunato walked deeper into the catacombs in the Cask of Amontillado, Montresor points out the trickling of the water on the bones. “We are below the river’s bed. The drops of moisture trickle among the bones.” (Cask)The setting is under the surface of the earth, so the audience associates it with with Hell because of the bones that lie around. The bones also make the audience feel that the setting is eery and dangerous because it reminds them of death. This only makes isolation and danger prominent factors in the setting. The mood becomes unpredictable and treacherous, with a sense of fear and dread knowing that something bad will happen to the characters who are away from safety. Under those circumstances, Poe controlled the audience's fear and the diabolical mood using the dark setting.

Poe stresses the setting to enhance the detail of the process by which the narrator is getting tortured by. In front of the “black-robed judges” is “seven tall candles” on the table (43). Symbolically, these candles represents the “slender white angels” that would save him and portrays the amount of time the narrator had to live (43). The candles are alight and imply that the narrator will not be saved and doesn’t have much time. The narrator is placed in a dark “tomb” after his trial where he is going to be tortured (46). This container where the narrator was being held in was circular and on the ceiling of the cell, there was a giant pendulum. On the floor of the tomb, “enormous rats” were navigating across (50). The rats scurrying across

First, Poe develops a dark and sinister atmosphere through his vivid imagery. An example of this is shown when Montresor and Fortunato reach the end of the crypt. Poe implores imagery as he describes the “walls [which] had been lined with human remains” (Poe 139). Poe’s lucid description of corpses incorporates a grim and haunting ambience into the setting.

Poe uses mood in a way to mirror the overall atmosphere that lingered in his life. One mood in the story is melancholy. The colors and the attitudes of the characters exhibit an exuberant amount of sadness. Rodrick claimed that the house is to blame for his gloom. Similarly, the house represents Poe’s life and Poe only has his life to blame for his recurring bad luck. Another mood used in the story is desperation. The narrator attempts to cheer up Rodrick, but fails to do so. He read Rodrick stories, watched him paint, and listened to him play guitar, but to no avail. Similarly, Poe tried his hardest to make a difference in his own life, but did not earn the recognition he deserved as far as he was still breathing. Tension is used as a mood, as well. The atmosphere gave off an ominous feeling since the readers never know what to expect. Poe’s life was as unpromising as his stories because just as one thought his life couldn’t get

In “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, the time and setting were critical in developing a proper atmosphere that was harrowing and distressing, but at the same time captivating.The author’s powerful use of diction and setting throughout the story was also crucial in establishing a sense of horror and revulsion. The unique, contradicting shift of absolute freedom to solitary confinement was significant throughout the backdrop of New Orleans. The suspenseful nature that was built up lead to the entrapment of Fortunato by Montresor. The ambience of suspense and fascinating revulsion was built through Poe’s descriptions of the bone-riddled cavern and the sinister staircase.