The Cask of Amontillado

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The Cask of Amontillado Edgar Allan Poe is a very well known writer in American literature. He was known for his short stories, poems of mystery and style of writing. In “The Cask of Amontillado” Poe exhibits a lot of irony, imagery, symbolism and foreshadowing. His writing was very unique, dark, and consisted of pessimistic moods. This aroused people to think Poe was a sociopath and strange as a person in real life. The title, “The Cask of Amontillado” has a meaning of its own. The word “cask” is the root word for “casket” which symbolizes Fortunato casket and Amontillado which is the wine he was lured into Montresor’s trap. In this story, Poe is telling the story in first person point of view. He is Montresor, the protagonist of the story who will take revenge on Fortunato, the antagonist. As Montresor his name meaning “my treasure” in French is having a flashback, he starts to describe the perfect murder he committed 50 years ago that has never been discovered.
Poe’s work was always embedded with symbolism. He always mastered the settings in his work. In this story he chooses “the supreme madness of carnival season”. This was a celebration of freedom; yet Fortunato was not going to have freedom within a few hours. He was about to be imprisoned by Montresor and left to die of starve and dehydration with many other bones. Yet, Fortunato name is considered to be ironic because his name meant fortunate (lucky in Italian) but his fate was anything but lucky. He was also dressed as a jester considering he was getting fooled as he gets deceived by Montresor. This story starts as Montresor saying, “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge”. Montresor first brushed off insults from Fortunato that he had encountered in the past until Montresor felt insulted for the second time. Montresor

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