The Cask of Amontillado, perhaps the most famous of Edgar
Allan Poe's short stories, is not only the horrific tale of a man immured alive, but
also a tour de force of the use of irony. Poe provides the raison d'etre for this when
he writes from the outset that "it must be understood that neither by word nor deed had
I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will." From the beginning to the end of this
tale of deception, therefore, various kinds of irony are on
display.
Verbal irony - saying one thing but meaning the
opposite - appears in the greeting Montresor has for the doomed Fortunato: "you are
luckily met"; in Montresor's feigned concern for his friend's hacking cough in his damp
catacombs: "Your health is precious...You are a man to be missed"; and in Fortunato's
reply: "The cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I will not die of a
cough."
Situational irony - when events turn out the
opposite of what ought to have been expected - appears when Montresor, on the night of
carnival, orders his servants not to leave in his absence, thereby ensuring they would
do the opposite; when the non-existent cask of amontillado turns instead into the
'casket' for the unfortunate conoisseur; and when premeditated murder remains unpunished
even after fifty years.
Dramatic irony - when readers
know more than the characters - is present in the very name of Montresor's 'enemy', a
most unlucky man; is present in Fortunato's doomed fool costume of "tight-fitting
parti-striped dress, and [...] head...surmounted by the conical cap and bells"; and is
present in the trowel Montresor reveals, sign of Masonic brotherhood to Fortunato,
but tool of immurement to Montresor.
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