Edgar Allan Poe and Gothic Imagery in The Cask of...

ENG 341-Studies in Literary Genres | The Significance of Imagery | In Edgar Allan Poe’s â€Å"The Cask of Amontillado† | Lauren Grilli 6/7/2010 | Imagery is described as the ‘mental pictures’ one interprets from reading any type of literature; this can be done using any of the five senses: taste, touch, smell, sight and sound. Edgar Allan Poe is notorious for his use of dramatic imagery in the gothic genre. â€Å"Gothic literature has a number of conventions, including evocations of horror, suggestions of the supernatural, and dark, exotic locales such as castles and crumbling mansions† (Canada, 1997). In this paper, I will examine the imagery Poe has chosen in The Cask of Amontillado, and explain why it is vital to the furthering of†¦show more content†¦The suspense builds when it becomes clear Fortunato has no clue about his fate. Montresor informs the intoxicated Fortunato of the Amontillado stored in the vaults below. After a little ego-trip, Fortunato convinces himself he must go and sample this grand vintage wine. As the story progresses, so does Montresor and Fortunato’s hell-li ke descent into the vaults, and also the â€Å"nitre† which â€Å"hangs like moss upon the vaults† (DiYanni, 2004). Montresor tells Fortunato â€Å"We are below the river’s bed† where â€Å"The drops of moisture trickle among the bones† and warns him to â€Å"Come, we will go back ere it’s too late† (DiYanni, 2004). The foulness of the air around them had â€Å"caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame†, and created a feeling of suffocation (DiYanni, 2004). By using simple but descriptive passages such as these, the reader is transported to the chilly vaults and can feel what the narrator and his companion sense. Every detail of the caves is explored through dialogue and as one scholar noted, â€Å"Poe’s strict attention to the geology and chemistry of the subterranean passages of Montresor’s chateau serves a much larger purpose than a simple description, the creation of atmosphere, and the selection of a n ideal place to conceal a murder† (Benton, 1991). With the centuries of buried dead around them and the dripping walls, it is literally a place of death and the reader becomes aware of this evenShow MoreRelatedEdgar Allan Poe s The Cask Of Amontillado1559 Words   |  7 PagesEdgar Allan Poe, a famous romanticism writer, created a gothic tone in his stories by describing the setting of his stories with vocabulary that helped create the dark plots of stories such as â€Å"The Cask of Amontillado†, â€Å"The Raven† and â€Å"The Pit and The Pendulum†. Poe’s own foster father, John Allan, stated that â€Å"His (Poe’s) talents are of an order that can never prove comfort to their possessor†. 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In three of his most well-known works, â€Å"The Tell Tale Heart,† â€Å"The Cask of Amontillado,† and â€Å"The RavenRead MoreRole of Realism in Edagar Allan Poe ´s The Tell Tale Heart and The Cask of Amortillado1014 Words   |  5 Pagesâ€Å"The Cask of Amontillado† written by Edgar Allan Poe are dark short stories relevant to murder, revenge, and mystery. Poe writes both stories in a Gothic style in order to deal with ideas of realism. One may ask were the murders and punishments justifiable in either short story? One may also ask did Poe accurately depict realism in each story? 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The culture and ethical value in his storiesRead MoreEdgar Allan Poe s The Cask Of Amontillado2043 Words   |  9 PagesMy tentative thesis states that Edgar Allan Poe’s â€Å"The Cask of Amontillado† is the single most perfect short story through a number of masterful techniques in order to drive home the point that the whole story is a confession to his priest in his dying hour. In order to help prove this, I attempted to gather articles mentioning religious imagery within this piece as well as other Poe works and looked i nto biographical information so as to have a number of sources from which to choose. The first set