Cask of amontillado – literary elements of foreshadowing

When the tunnels come to a dead end, Mentors chains Fortunate and buries him in the e catacombs. The literary elements of foreshadowing, symbolism, and irony help to create a tale of horror or found in the short story ” The Cask of Amontillado” written by Edgar Allan Poe. To build suspense in the story, Poe often employs foreshadowing. For example e, when Fortunate says, ” l shall not die of a cough (Poe 66). Mentors replies, mat rue [.. J” (Poe 66), because he knows that Fortunate will in fact die from dehydration and starve ion in the crypt.

He reshow’s future events by employing the topic of death into the conversant ion. On the other hand, Mentor’s description of hisfamily’s coat of arms also symbolizes future eve ants. The shield features a human foot crushing a tenacious serpent. In this image, the foot represents Mentors and the serpent represents Fortunate. Although Fortunate has hurt Mentors with biting inns Its, Mentors will ultimately crush him. The conversation about Masons also foreshadows Forth anta’s demise. Are not of the masons. ‘ ‘Yes, yes,’ I said; yes, yes. ‘ ‘You? Impossible! A mason? ‘ ‘A m son,’ I replied. A sign,’ he said. It is this,’ answered, producing a trowel from beneath the folds of my require” (Poe 68). When he declares that he is a ” mason” by showing his trowel, he means t hat he is a literal stonemason and that he constructs things out of stones and mortar, namely F rotunda’s grave. Pope’s use of symbolism describes each character. ” The man wore motley. He had on a tight fitting predestined dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap an d bells. I was so pleased to see him, that thought should never have done wringing his hand” (Poe 63). His face covered in a lack silk mask, Mentors symbolizes hidden things.

In this case, the mask sys embolisms Mentor’s hidden thoughts to kill Fortunate. On the other hand, Fortunate dons the mot electrode costume of the court fool, who gets literally and tragically fooled by Mentor’s masked mot eves. The color schemes here represent the irony of Fortune’s death sentence. Using symbolism such h as the setting of the dark and dank catacombs, Poe uses the gloomyenvironmentto symbolize death a ND horrible things to come. We came at length to the foot of the descent, and stood together on the dam p ground of the catacombs f the Mentors” (Poe 66).

The bones in the catacomb symbolizes that Forth NATO would soon be one of them. Using irony, Poe further uses literary elements to create a tale Of horror. Using g dramatic irony, Poe reveals the path of death that Fortunate is heading to. Fortunate is head Eng towards death but ironically does not even question the suspicious Mentors until the last mom . NET. ” It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunate cause to duo bat my good will. Continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the Hough of his immolation” (Poe 63).

Fortunate doesn’t know what will happen to himself but both the audience and Mentors knows that the story’ will end with Fortune’s death. Another example Of irony is the situation irony of Fortune’s name. ” He had a weak point-? this Of rotunda-? although in other regards he was a man to be respected and even feared. He prided him elf on his connoisseurship in wine” (Poe 63). Fortunate, Italian for ” the fortunate one,” ironically means t he exact opposite in this story, representing situational irony. Instead of the fortunate one, Fortunate comes the unfortunate one, dying from the hands of Mentors.