Discuss the Setting of Edgar Allan Poe's The Cast of Amontillado Essay

Discuss the Setting of Edgar Allan Poes The Cast of Amontillado - Essay ExampleAn author also uses the context of uses to elaborate on the surroundings or to distract hotshots reader, to make trend for introducing credibility or organization in a story or to make the things more(prenominal) confusing or chaotic. The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe is a story that hovers around revenge and vengeance. The narrator in the story creates a spooky and gloomy setting centered on the underground tomb of a European aristocrat, and ideal locale and ambience to relate a mysterious and blood curdling tale from the past. The settings in this story make it more believable, add to its Gothic appeal and keep the reader expectant and apprehensive till the end. When it comes to the setting in a story, Poes approach was to select and bump the details with precision and care so that they amply contributed to the mood he intended to project, while avoiding all excess and dross. This is what Poe masterfully attempts to do while choosing the setting in the work under consideration. The essential objective of the setting in The Cask of Amontillado is to accentuate the tales mysteriousness, by leaving many questions unanswered. The source or the narrator never clearly mentions the locale of the story. It is the narrators reference to palazzo, which is the Italian for a palace and his knowledge of the Italian wines that amply back up to the conjecture that perhaps the story is set at some place in Italy (Poe Online). Plausibly, a noncommittal and ambiguous approach on the part of the author regarding the place where the story takes place in a way allows the readers to let their imagination go free. This stratagem allows the readers to use ones fancy to hypothesize or often fill in the details that the writer purposely left unanswered and untold. The tendency to hide big details while immaculately etching the micro physical and atmospheric elements of the surroundings in which the story takes place, makes the writer have a hold over the readers deep seated emotions of compassionate and fear, while nowhere obviously appearing to do so. Again the writer never directly mentions the time in which the story takes place. However, it will be guard to say that it took place somewhere around eighteenth or 19th century, as Fortunato is depicted as being a Mason (Poe Online). Also, Montresor is shown as wearing away a roquelaire, which was a common fashion accessory, attributed to the 18th and the 19th century (Poe Online). The ambiguity regarding the time and place in the narrative initially frustrates the reader, until one relents and surrenders ones imagination to the will and intentions of the writer. Poe also uses the setting in the story to create a contrast between the revelry of the carnival in the 18th century Italy and the horror associated with Montresors vaults and catacombs (Poe Online). The parties, costumes, feasts, parades, capes and masks signifying the festivities and joys of the carnival are in sharp contrast to the darkness, murkiness and somewhat diabolical nature of the crime that Montresor intends to commit. The gaiety and worship associated with the carnival acts as a file which further accentuates the morbidity of Montresors intentions and strategy. The brooding sense of fear and threat are in a way get highlighted by the atmosphere in Montresors underground vault where both his wine and the skeletons of his family members reside (Poe Online). To the essentially American readers of Poe, these