Situational Irony The Cask Of Amontillado Analysis

958 Words4 Pages
Expository Essay
Irony can clearly be stated as the use of words that mean the opposite of what we think it means. An example of a story that uses irony is The Cask of Amontillado. Which is about a man named Montresor who believes this other man named Fortunato insulted him. Montresor’s family motto is “no one insults me with impunity”, he feels justified in taking revenge on Fortunato. In the short story by Edgar Allen Poe, there are countless examples of irony to convey Montresor’s unlawful act, while applying an additional layer of irony to sabotage his revenge.
An example of situational irony Poe uses in the story is simply the name Fortunato. Fortunato is an Italian name that means good fortune or luck. This is an example of situational irony because his name means the complete opposite of what he actually was. His name means lucky and fortunate. Despite that, Fortunato was the complete opposite from lucky. First of all, he wasn’t lucky because he became friends with the wrong person. He was deceived and ended up being punished for his foolishness. It shows us how if we are friends with the wrong people, we can get into trouble and may suffer immensely because of it. Edgar Allen Poe probably knew what the name Fortunato meant but purposely used it to display situational irony. Even though it meant lucky, Fortunato wasn’t lucky at all in this story. For example, he was chained up and buried alive, as well as having a gruesome cough, and got in all sorts of trouble.