Gabrielle Brooks
Mrs. Laycook
English 9H, Period 2
14 October 2014
The Cask of Amontillado Edgar Allan Poe uses irony to foreshadow, create suspense, and elicit an emotional response from the reader. In Poe’s short story “The Cask of Amontillado,” Montresor says, “My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met” (Poe 7). This phrase is used foreshadow the events to come. In this phrase, Montresor is greeting his supposed friend, Fortunato, and is saying that he is lucky to be meeting him, when in fact, it is quite the contrary for Montresor plans to kill him. Poe uses verbal irony in the phrase said by Montresor to Fortunato: “‘Come,’ I said, with decision, ‘we will go back; your health is precious’” (Poe 8). This is ironic because Fortunato’s health is not important to Montresor at all; in fact, it is more likely that he wants him to get worse so that his death is all the more torturous. This heightens suspense because Montresor is tricking Fortunato into coming to the wine cellar, where he will exact his “just” revenge. In “The Cask of the Amontillado,” Poe uses dramatic irony to allow the reader to know something the character does not in the phrase spoken by Fortunato, “A very good joke—an excellent jest” (Poe 12). In this quote, Fortunato is laughing at being buried alive as a last ditch effort to survive, but the reader knows that there is no chance of Fortunato’s survival and that Montresor will carry out his plan even if it is the last thing he does; he has to defend
