Suspense In Edgar Allen Poe And The Cask Of Amontillado

Edgar Allan poe is one of the most incredible gothic writers, with a library of many famous works. He is famous for his dark and ominous way of narrating, as well as his brutal and obscure endings to his tales. Arguably his most famous works are the poem entitled “The Raven” published January 29th 1845, and his short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” published a few years earlier on January 1843. Both of these pieces of literature pulled the listener directly into Poe's mysterious world, with suspense and intensity in every line. “The Raven” and “The Tale-Heart’ written by Edgar Allan Poe both develop the gothic theme of madness by using dark imagery, similar symbolism, and torment.

Edgar Allan Poe is an American Gothic author from the 19th century. It is well known that Edgar Allan Poe was a master of suspense. The word ‘suspense’ is defined by the Oxford Dictionary to be ‘A state or feeling of excited or anxious uncertainty about what may happen.’ Two of Poe’s works are ‘Ligeia’ and ‘The Fall of the House Usher’. ‘Ligeia’ is the story of an unnamed narrator in love with his wife Lady Ligeia and how he copes with her death. ‘The fall of the House of Usher’ is the story of an unnamed narrator visiting his friend Roderick Usher at his house. Both of them are full of suspense and this is the main topic this essay will be focusing on. This essay will attempt to illustrate how Poe builds suspense in his short stories

The intricately placed details and glimpses of death in “The Cask of Amontillado” can establish a dark and thought-provokingly immersive environment for the reader to explore. Being able to make a connection with a story and digging in is a wonderful experience and is something every reader should be able to do. That is why “The Cask of Amontillado” is such an important story. Poe left out any extra details that were not needed and boiled the story down to the core essentials. This allows the reader to look straight into the heart of the story and immerse themselves in it

The " Cask of Amontillado" is a story about revenge. To display revenge in this story, Poe uses mood and suspense to display that revenge can lead to negative intentions. Mood is a feeling that is conveyed to the reader through literary work. Suspense is a state or feeling of excited or anxious uncertainty about what may happen. In the “Cask of Amontillado” Poe uses mood and suspense to display that revenge can make you lose your humanity.

In “The Cask of Amontillado” Poe creates suspense through foreshadowing with words with strong connotations which creates anticipation in the reader. Within the short story there are multiple examples of foreshadowing throughout. The narrator “vowed revenge”(1) on Fortunato,but then further emphasizes his point by stating, “I must not only punish, but punish with impunity” (1). One understands the speaker’s intensity to fulfill his desire, while being unaware of the process. Poe creates a very dark and heavy tone using words with strong connotation. It expresses the passion and commitment within Montresor to complete the deed. From this quotation one can understood that the speaker will release his revenge intensely as the quotation also represents

Edgar Allan Poe is a writer who uses many types of writing techniques in his short stories and poems. As a child, his parents died when he was three years old, and once he grew up, he attended two colleges and was kicked out of both. He lost his editing job due to his heavy drinking. These unlikely events show why he writes the way he does today but the one event that caused his darkness to show was when his wife died. Poe is a literary genius because of his ability to use many different literary styles. Edgar Allan Poe creates an atmosphere of fear in “The Cask of Amontillado” through the setting, imagery, and characterization.

It is Edgar Allan Poe's intense use of symbolism and irony throughout the Cask of Amontillado that establishes the short story as an indeed interesting candidate worthy of thorough analysis. The skillful use of these devices are utilized by the author to create this horrific and suspenseful masterpiece.

To develop the analytical paper about the text “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, some sources will be used to support the thesis statement, which is “The author uses irony in the text to illustrate the murder of Fortunado by Montresor, who seeks salvation through death”. Also, there is going to be an analysis on the irony found in the text in relation with the story. To support this thesis, I am going to use some examples from some sources such as “Literary analysis: Irony in The Cask of Amontillado" by Amelia Tibbett, “Irony in "The Cask of Amontillado” by Kerry Michael Wood, and “Poe 's Short Stories Summary and Analysis” by Bella Wang , and the text will be written in the third person.

The story “ The Cask of Amontillado” provides various amounts of moods as they walk through the catacomb. In Edgar Allan Poe’s story, the main character known as Montresor, goes through creepy situations and events with the intoxicated, Fortunato. As this story goes on talking about them walking through the catacomb, there’s at most four moods created throughout the story. Those consists of eerie, suspenseful, scary, and dramatic. These moods are to be spoken about when Montresor does something awful to his acquaintant, Fortunato.

In the short story “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe tell of a man going to great extents to get revenge. Montresor holds a grudge against Fortunato because he has insulted him several times causing pain inside him to form and builds up day by day. Fortunato has a talent of tasting wine but needs to find a way not to express his feelings that much. Throughout the story, Edgar Allan Poe creates events in which he builds suspense. The author keeps his readers on their feel by having a surprise at every corner. Edgar Allan Poe demonstrates in “The Cask of Amontillado” how he uses the conflict to show the build of suspense, change of mood of the reader, develop the theme, reflect a change in the character/characters.

Edgar Allen Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado is a story of fear and revenge. The dark

Edgar Allan Poe; a famous all American Poet, short story writer and critic. Some of his most famous writings include Raven and The Cask of Amontillado. His writings all include horror or some type of mystery. Edgar did not have the “white picket fence” type of life. His was like riding on a rollercoaster, full of difficulties, but he turned out to be a writing genius. But I think that alcohol, and unsupportive family impacted Poe’s writing style, as well as the difficulties in his life.

Why are people drawn to stories of the insane? Insanity is a major theme in the media; from literature, to movies, to television, even in games - many stories focus on when the frail human psyche has been pushed to its breaking point. In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado”, Montresor relates the tale of revenge on his supposed friend, Fortunato. While everyone is out of his home and the streets are filled with the noises of the carnival, Montresor lures Fortunato to his home. He tells him he has acquired a pipe of Amontillado, and he wishes Fortunato to confirm its authenticity. Montresor plays the concerned friend, appearing worried about Fortunato’s health

“The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe is a story full of irony. Irony is defined as a literary technique in which what appears differs radically from what is actually the case. In addition, irony can be divided into three groups: dramatic, verbal, and situational. Dramatic irony is when the readers notice something before the characters do. Verbal irony is when the characters say something that differs significantly from what they really mean. Situational irony is when the actual result is different from what was initially expected. In “The Cask of Amontillado,” Poe combines all of these ironies to tell the story and to construct the personalities of the characters in an entertaining way.

One way Poe demonstrates suspense in these works is through the use of an unreliable narrator. In both of these pieces, the main character is a mysterious and untrustworthy narrator. In “The Raven,” the narrator starts by saying, “ONCE upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, / While I nodded, nearly napping” (1, 3). The narrator has just awoken to the sound of knocking at his door. While it is up for debate, the narrator could very well be dreaming or hallucinating about the raven and the tapping, but the reader and even the narrator are waiting for a signal to explicitly show that it is just a figment of his imagination. In the other story, “The Pit and the Pendulum,” the narrator is introduced to us as criminal who has been sentenced to death. The narrator describes the moment saying, “The sentence—the dread sentence of death— was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears [before swooning]” (263). The reader discovers at the beginning of the story that the narrator has committed a crime so terrible that he has been sentenced to death. The audience spends the whole story trying to figure out when he will die and by which type of torment he will die to. In both of Poe’s works the narrators are unreliable characters who the reader cannot completely trust, which leads to the suspense of waiting for the whole truth.