Poe On Setting

Edgar Allan Poe creatively uses setting in “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Fall of the House of Usher”. The narrators in “Cask” and “Usher” describe settings that produce a dark and gloomy vision in our minds. Poe’s use of setting also seems to enhance the morbidity of Montresor in “Cask”, and Roderick Usher in “Usher”. The vivid use of setting in “Cask” and “Usher” create a sense of horror that compliments the outcomes in both stories.

In “ Usher ” Poe’s use of setting gives us images of a deteriorating existence of the Usher mansion and the two remaining Ushers, Roderick and Madeline. The imagery Poe uses describes the Ushers and their home disintegrating from within, and as the mansion collapses physically, the Ushers are suffering a similar fate mentally. The narrator’s description of the Usher mansion is not one of where a prominent family would reside, but more of a seen from the 1960’s sitcom “ The Munsters ”. While describing his feeling upon arriving at the Usher home the narrator expresses the emotions that filled him from his first glimpse of the decaying structu

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Montresor then proceeds to entomb Fortunato by masoning a wall and fulfilling his vengeance. Fortunato being unaware of any malicious intent from Montresor joins him to sample the Amontillado at Motresor’s palace. One of the descriptions used by the narrator for Roderick’s appearance is “a cadaverousness of complexion”(paragraph 8). While proceeding on through the catacombs the men arrived finally at a very deep crypt where the walls had been lined with human remains.

Once the men arrive at Montresor’s palazzo they proceeded to the supposed vaults where the fictitious Amontillado was supposedly stored. “Cask” would not be as horrific if Fortunato was left to die barricaded in an alley. Roderick tells the narrator of his malady and also of his sister Madeline’s ailments, which he feels will cause both of them to perish along with the doomed mansion

In “Cask” the setting starts at a carnival in Italy where Montresor meets his hapless, drunk, gaily dressed friend Fortunato, who is enjoying the ongoing festivities. While drinking some wine Montresor offered him for a cough, Fortunato, still unwitting of his friend’s intentions says, “ I drink to the buried that repose around us” (paragraph 41). Montresor goes on with boosting his clueless friends ego by saying, “ I was silly enough to pay full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter” (paragraph 7). The narrator’s description of the house and property of the Usher estate sounds like a condemned

prisoner on deathwatch, awaiting his fate. “ Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with difficulty that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my early boyhood” (paragraph 8). Montresor convinces Fortunato through flattering him on his knowledge of wine and expressing doubts about a recent purchase of Amontillado, “ I have received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts” (paragraph 5). We will have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo—he! he! he!—over our wine—he! he! he!” (paragraph 79), Montresor only mocked him and finished his task. “There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart—an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime” (paragraph 1).

Approximate Word count = 741
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

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