Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe, renowned master of the horror story, conceives an utterly despicable tale of dismay entitled "The Cask of Amontillado". A mentally gruesome account of revenge, the story concerns only two sketchy characters with indefinite past. Definition of character is irrelevant to Poe's literary purpose of quickly sharing one man's hideous design of premeditated murder and his carrying out thereof. Poe's lyrical genius accomplishes this purpose through the use of specific literary elements such as tone and style, symbol and irony, and, all encompassing, theme. By reputation, Poe's anecdotes are typically mysterious and chilling; his characters are often diabolical and deranged. Nevertheless, pretenses of his often-unusual climaxes are never granted. In "The Cask of Amontillado" Poe's tone is predictably eerie, gripping, and peculiar. By setting the story within dark and morbid catacombs, Poe easily lures readers into experiencing the exact effects he wishes to convey. Poe utilizes language to set the story's tone. Tone is atmosphere or mood words. For instance, the story could be described as suspenseful, dark, eerie, gripping, dynamic, thrilling, peculiar, creepy, spine-chilling, sinister, frightening, or alarmi
" Words such as, "impunity", "unredressed", "retribution", and "redresser" are not commonplace in daily language, therefore providing an air of intelligence on Poe's behalf. Even the Amontillado itself is a symbol of death. Poe installs a sub-theme in "Cask", which is death. Examples of verbal irony include, Montressor toasting to Fortunato's long life, also Montressor's asking Fortunato whether they should not proceed into the catacombs, for Montressor is concerned with Fortunato's cough. Fortunato's name resembles the word "fortunate", which is ironic because Fortunato is hardly fortunate in this story. "The Cask of Amontillado" features more symbol and irony than any other literary element. The final use of verbal irony exist in the last sentence of the story when Montressor says, "In pace requiescat" or Rest in Peace The use of Symbol also adds flare to this dramatic short story. The story's every twist and turn revolves around the idea of death. These two elements are what distinguish Poe from other writers, that is, his uncanny ability to make reference to people, places, or things that have a separate meaning in themselves. An example of dramatic irony is when Montressor and Fortunato are walking to reach the "wine" and the reader is aware of Fortunato's ignorance towards his fate. He oft-challenged his reader's vocabularies by building sentences with words not common to everyday use. Dramatic irony is where the reader perceives something that a character in the story does not, and verbal irony is when character says one thing and means something else. Stories may even contain a sub-theme, that is, another truth that, in some way, resembles the original theme.
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