Suspense in “The Cask of Amontillado”

In the story “The Cask of Amontillado”, the Poe creates a lot of suspense. This story was in an unnamed Italian city at a carnival when a man takes revenge on his friend who he thinks has done him wrong. He makes the reader think that they are going to get to the wine that Montresor wants to show Fortunato, but they never quite get there. The writer is always making it where you want to keep reading the book to see what is coming next. In this book the writer makes it easy to picture what is happening.

There are many ways that Edgar Allen Poe uses suspense, foreshadowing, and imagery in “The Cask of Amontillado”. In the beginning of this story, Montresor asks Fortunato more than once, if he has somewhere that he needs to be. Fortunato finally answers with “no” and Montresor decides that it will be safe to follow through with his plan. It almost seems like he is giving Fortunato a chance to turn back or Montresor isn’t wanting to kill Fortunato. He also takes advantage of Fortunato since he is very drunk and doesn’t know exactly what is going on. This makes it a lot easier for Fortunato to go along with what Montresor asks him to do.

When Montresor asks him more than once about his plans the reader can get the idea that something bad is going to happen. Montresor wants to make sure nobody is going to come looking for Fortunato and that’s why Montresor keeps asking Fortunato if he has plans. This gives the reader the idea that Montresor is probably going to do something other than show Fortunato the wine. This makes the reader think that Montresor is going to hurt or kill Fortunato.

Suspense is shown in the story by the characters being at a carnival where it is happy and cheerful and then it says they’re slowly going down into a dark, damp crypt. The reader gets the idea as they get deeper into the tunnels, something bad will eventually happen. Montresor keeps asking Fortanato about his health and seems to be acting like he’s worried about him but he doesn’t really care. Fortunato says he “shall not die of a cough”. This foreshadows an end to Fortunato. When Fortunato says he “shall not die of a cough,” this is true since he died from dehydration and starvation.

Poe is able to create suspense throughout the whole story by talking about the tunnels and how damp and dark they are and the presence of death. The way he writes this story shows dark imagery. You can imagine Montresor taking Fortunato into the tunnels and how dark it is. The reader can imagine Montresor building the wall and even how drunk Fortunato is. It’s amazing how many things you can imagine just by the way Poe wrote the story.

Suspense was also shown when Montresor chained Fortunato and then slowly started building the wall to close him in where he couldn’t get out. He would stop to look at him or listen to him and it made you wonder if he was dead yet. This book was constantly making you wonder what was going to happen next or if Fortunato was dead. This story also made the reader wonder if Montresor was just playing around and was going to let Fortunato go. The story made you wonder if they would ever get to the wine, but they never did. It’s crazy what someone would do just to kill a person. “The Cask of Amontillado” was a weird story but a very interesting story to read.

Cite this page