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Dramatic Irony In The Cask Of Amontillado

Decent Essays

It is known that Edgar Allan Poe was a short story writer, novelist, essayist, poet and an editor. His background created a foundation in short fiction and the effects of it. In Poe’s short story, “The Cask of Amontillado” he tells a short story of great tension and revenge. The author uses many different literary elements in his story including irony. This entire story is built from the bottom up of ironic situations and things. The title for instance has the word Cask which means a barrel of wine. The word cask is also short for the word casket which can be also known as a coffin, so the author is setting the story up already by the title meaning it will be about the casket of Amontillado. There are two types of irony that are used in this story, verbal and dramatic irony. An example of dramatic irony is when the reader themselves learn about what is about to become of Fortunato who is too intoxicated to realize what is going on and still goes into the catacombs in search of the Amontillado. Poe continues to further drag out the irony when he named one of the main characters Fortunato when in fact he is a man of misfortune. Also Fortunato is dressed up in a fool’s costume since in fact Montresor will in fact make a fool of him that is all a part of his plan. Charles N. Nevi writes about why Fortunato is dressed the way he is and that “Fortunato’s dress is ironic, for a jester is not just a man to be laughed at; he is a man who makes others laugh by being aware of the

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