“Causing physical or mental discomfort” is the definition of feeling uneasy, this is how Edgar Allan Poe leaves people after they read his stories (“Uneasy”). Likewise, a short story by Edgar Allan Poe that leaves you feeling this way is, “The Cask of Amontillado” which is about two competitors in the wine industry, Montresor and Fortunato. When they meet one evening on the streets during the carnival season in Italy, Montresor takes advantage of Fortunato’s drunkenness and vanity. He mentions that he has a cask of Amontillado, to lure Fortunato to his inevitable doom. Edgar Allan Poe uses single effect in this short story through the plot and the setting to induce uneasiness in the reader.
Edgar Allan Poe creates a horrific setting and plot in
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To begin with the setting, the narrator attempts to make the audience feel anxious and nervous. For example, Poe illustrates, “The earth which formed the floor was cold and hard. We were entering the last resting place of the dead of the Montresor family.” (70) He talks of the descent and the niter, and by describing the setting in such detail, Edgar fills the readers with disturbing imagery that gives them an uneasy feeling. To continue, he narrates that the characters “...could see the bones of the dead lying in large piles along the walls. The stones of the walls were wet and cold” (Poe 70). This allows the reader to picture themselves in this scene, building up the intense fear and anxiety they have already. Additionally, Poe created a chilling plot about how Montresor went on to murder Fortunato out of revenge for “the thousand