THESIS: When approaching a story by Edgar Allan Poe, the reader knows full well what to expect; something grim, shocking, bloody, evil, dark, sinister, and possibly something surprising is bound to happen. It may even be hideously frightening, and that will not be a shock to the senses of an experienced reader of Poe. But the real point of reviewing a Poe short story in the context of literary criticism, the real challenge, is to learn from the master himself. Reading Poe should be more than mere entertainment; it should be a learning experience in terms of how to use irony, how to produce sardonic humor, and how to employ bold and even cold narrative.
             BODY OF RESEARCH PAPER: In Poe's noted short story, The Cask of Amontillado, the author, as he usually does, plants several powerful (and usually ironic) images in the beginning of the story, as both tone-setters and foreshadowing. In the very first paragraph, "revenge," "insult," and the "thousand injuries" that Fortunato had apparently inflicted on him, are out there for the reader to see. In fact, that first sentence is a powerful hint – "in characteristically precise and logical detail" (Delaney, 2005) – as to what will happen. At the beginning of the fourth paragraph, another strong hint ("...about dusk...one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season") that lunacy is about to rear its head. So it will be revenge, punishment with "impunity," that the protagonist Montresor will visit about poor Fortunato (an ironic name to be sure in this context).
             The ironies that Poe uses continue through this entire story. Apart from the main plot and what the readers think will happen to unlucky Fortunato, there is a plethora of ironic passages designed to dig deep into the reader's consciousness, and to entertain. First, the smile on the face of the plotting protagonist was not known by For...