Dramatic Irony In The Cask Of Amontillado

The Chilling Tale of An Unsolved Murder: The Cask of Amontillado Edgar Allen Poe’s, “Cask of Amontillado”, tells a tale of a man who seeks revenge for a crime never actually spoken of. The narrator, Montresor, pursues our victim, Fortunado, by convincing him to stray away from the local festivities and providing him with the temptation of the ever sought-after, Amontillado. Of course, this highly popular wine is hidden away beneath the depths of Montresor’s property, within the dampened tunnels leading to Fortunado’s eventual crypt. The reader is unaware of the reasoning behind the death of Fortunado, leaving them to believe that Montresor is an unstable person. The “Cask of Amontillado”, depicts a murder by a vengeful man, of which the narrator never reveals his motive, giving the structure of this murder story an alternative point of view. A reader’s first interpretation of Montresor is most likely something of the cold-blooded sort or perhaps unreasonable, considering he was so adamant in seeking revenge upon Fortunado at the very beginning of the story,

The very setting of the story is ironic, in that Montresor has chosen the festive carnival season to execute his murder because no one will be at his estate to witness the crime. Fortunato himself is dressed in a jester's outfit, and the jingling of his jester's bells reminds us as readers, of the atmosphere of happiness and cheer outside the catacombs. Later, as they drink the Medoc, Fortunato drinks to the dead and buried, not realizing that he is about to join them, and Montresor blithely drinks to Fortunato's