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Symbolism In The Cask Of Amontillado

Decent Essays

The Cask of Amontillado Appearances are the first things we notice about another human. Whether it be their bloodshot beady eyes or florescent smile, our first impression has been made. Just as Montresor, in the short story “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, deliberately puts up a façade acting kind and good willed to a man named Fortunato, although this is not his true intentions. As the story progresses you discover the theme of the short story: People are not always as you perceive them to be which Edgar Allan Poe exemplifies through the use of an unreliable narrator, verbal irony, and a symbol. Poe first displays Montresor’s ill willed thoughts about Fortunato when Montresor explains, “I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile was now at the thought of his …show more content…

You are rich, respected, and beloved…”’ (Poe 214). Montresor’s true intentions by saying this is to psychologically trick Fortunato into staying in the underground passage with him. What Montresor is saying is verbal irony; in which way that Montresor isn’t actually saying what he means but rather he really means the opposite of good health and being for Fortunato. Once again verbal irony is shown through Poe’s writing in: “’I drink,’ he said presenting his wine… ‘I drink,’ he said, ‘to the buried that repose around us.’
‘And I to your long life.’” (Poe 214). Once more this is the exact opposite of what Montresor is wanting to happen for Fortunato and he also does the exact opposite of promoting Fortunato’s health by fettering him to a wall deep within the underground vaults and barricading him, prolonging his eventual death from suffocation within the

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