Irony in Poe

A detailed Summary of Irony in Poe

When people hear the name Edgar Allan Poe, ninety nine percent of the time the first thing that pops into their mind is horror, and rightfully so. A classic example of Poe's command of the horror genre is his short story, The Cask of Amontillado. This short story, however, isn't chock full of horror, the horror in the story comes at the end, and is quite a shock to the reader. What makes this story so powerful is how shocking the horrific conclusion is, and Poe uses a variety of literary tools to create this effect.

An excellent example of one of these literary tools is Poe's use of irony. Poe extensively uses irony throughout the entire story, from the character's exterior and interior traits to their actions and dialog, there are numerous examples of dramatic and verbal irony. What makes these ironies so effective is the way Poe mask the ending in them. These ironies foretell Fortunato's demise, but the reader will not fully realize just how ironic they are until the end. It is how Poe ties these ironies together with the ending that they are so effective in magnifying the shock and horror of the story's ending.

The character of Fortunato himself contains many ironies, when considering

Certainly, Poe' stories mostly do not have that much irony in them, those stories are intended by the author to shock the readers by telling them something horrifying. However, The Cask of Amontillado is the perfect example when the author was able to incorporate a considerable bit of irony into the conceptual framework of the whole story. The behavior of Fortunato, as well as his very name, are the most important illustrations of irony within the story. Certainly, Fortunato is anything else but fortunate, he is about to be chained and left alone in the cold vault, however he does not know that and thinks that everything is fine until the last moment of the story. This bitter irony in The Cask of Amontillado is one of the most important elements that make the story so interesting to read, no wonder it is considered one of the best Poe's works.

We see here that Fortunato has decided to dress as a jester for carnival; this will prove to be an ironic choice of garb because of Montresor's intentions of making a fool out of Fortunato. However, the most powerful irony in Fortunato's character, is his pride, more specifically, his pride in his wine connoisseurship. Montresor's plan for revenge uses this pride as the hook to ensnare Fortunato, and the cask of Amontillado was the bate.

It is shocking because Montresor never once lets us know his true intentions until he executes his plan, and the horror is in how the ironies tell the ending without giving it away. If you will consider the ending of the movie, "The Usual Suspects," the detective knows all the facts, but he will not put them together until the end of the movie when he finally realizes what has happened. He then replays the events in his mind and sees how everything fits into place. While Poe's story isn't quite the same, the effect on the reader is, the reader sees the ironies in Fortunato name, his costume, the way he insist on pursuing the Amontillado, and the way Monstresor thinks he is a mason only wh

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Approximate Word count = 1335
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English