The world-renowned writer of the novel The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins, once said, “For there to be betrayal, there would have to have been trust first.” This quote will be detrimental to the analysis of the short story Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe. The author explores a theme of betrayal and murder by using the literary devices of dramatic irony, symbolism, foreshadowing. The emotional buildup of the character, that is also the murderer, creates suspense in the perception of the reader. A variety of emotions can build up inside of someone’s mental capacity to make them commit a crime as bad as murder without thinking about any of the consequences or conflicts that may arise following the victim’s death. Every single murderer caught or on the run, in any case always has a reason to the actions he has committed. In Cask of Amontillado, one of the literary devices Poe uses is symbolism. Symbolism is the action, dialogue, or event of a character that has a deeper …show more content…
He made everything seem to contradict itself that created constant tension between the reader’s expectations and the actual actions that will take place in the short story. Even between the characters that thought an event should happen or how it should in fact does not happen at all or happens in an entire different way than expected. Poe using the literary elements of symbolism, foreshadowing, and irony to let the reader become more interested in the evolving eventual plot made Cask of Amontillado a popular piece of literature that everyone of different backgrounds, ages, and gender can immerse themselves into. By using the elements he did, Poe could explain the reasoning behind Fortunato’s death and why was naïve to the events foreshadowing his murder. Aside from the technicality aspect of Poe’s use of elements, he also exposed the issues yet beauty of art and the artists themselves of the day and