Irony in Poe
When people hear the name Edgar Allan Poe, ninety nine percent of the time the first thing that pops into their mind is horror, and rightfully so. A classic example of Poe's command of the horror genre is his short story, The Cask of Amontillado. This short story, however, isn't chock full of horror, the horror in the story comes at the end, and is quite a shock to the reader. What makes this story so powerful is how shocking the horrific conclusion is, and Poe uses a variety of literary tools to create this effect. An excellent example of one of these literary tools is Poe's use of irony. Poe extensively uses irony throughout the entire story, from the character's exterior and interior traits to their actions and dialog, there are numerous examples of dramatic and verbal irony. What makes these ironies so effective is the way Poe mask the ending in them. These ironies foretell Fortunato's demise, but the reader will not fully realize just how ironic they are until the end. It is how Poe ties these ironies together with the ending that they are so effective in magnifying the shock and horror of the story's ending. The character of Fortunato himself contains many ironies, when considering
It is shocking because Montresor never once lets us know his true intentions until he executes his plan, and the horror is in how the ironies tell the ending without giving it away. The first example of this is in how Montresor describes the meeting of him and Fortunato. Montresor's plan for revenge uses this pride as the hook to ensnare Fortunato, and the cask of Amontillado was the bate. 23-24) Montresor greets Fortunato saying, "My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. Certainly, Fortunato is anything else but fortunate, he is about to be chained and left alone in the cold vault, however he does not know that and thinks that everything is fine until the last moment of the story. Montresor knew that Fortunato's pride was so great that he would stop at nothing to be the one to taste the wine and lay down the definitive ruling. As mentioned previously, the story takes place during the carnival season, a time for partying and celebrating, ironic because Fortunato will have little to celebrate by the end of the night. More examples of irony lie in the setting of the story. If you will consider the ending of the movie, "The Usual Suspects," the detective knows all the facts, but he will not put them together until the end of the movie when he finally realizes what has happened. Because it is the middle of the carnival season, Fortunato was dressed in costume, "He had on a tight fitting parti-striped dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells. At the time this irony seems very humorous not just to Fortunato, but even to the reader. Seeing how Montresor is confused Fortunato says, "You are not of the masons. Lastly, we can look at Montresor's actions, both in how he tells his story, and also his actions during the story, to find more examples of irony. He then replays the events in his mind and sees how everything fits into place.
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