Irony in Poe\'s \"The Cask

Irony in Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Black Cat"

Edgar Allan Poe is known for his tales of horror and as good and thrilling as they are, Poe always seems to incorporate another literary technique to emphasize terror within the reader. "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Black Cat," are excellent example of how infuses irony with terror. In "The Cask of Amontillado," we have a man leading the other to his death by a curious means and in "the Black Cat," we must listen tot the tale of a madman that is convinced that he is not mad. Each tale creates within us a sense of heightened fear when we realize that these stories could be about real people. The stories could survive without the irony but the irony adds another level of terror. In fact, the irony allows is feel the terror deeper because it is more difficult to forget these narrators. This is no doubt Poe's intention - to create narrators that linger long in our memory long after our ryes have left the last words. Irony allows Poe's creations to haunt us.

With the "The Cask of Amontillado," Poe uses verbal irony with the conversation between Montresor and Fortunato. Montresor fakes being concerned with Fortunato's cough and is able to trick him into walking right to his death. Fortunato's difficulty breathing only gives Montresor more ammunition. Montresor goads Fortunato by telling him "We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible" (Poe Cask of Amontillado 92). His health "is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was" (92). At every turn, Montresor is ready to say something ironic to Fortunato as if to rub it in even as Fortunato is clueless. He tells Fortunato he will not die of a cough because he knows the awful truth. Robin Winks points out that Montresor "reveals both meticulous planning and astute analysis of his adversary" (Winks). The plan includes tricking Fortunato's "vanity as a wine connoisseur, then uses reverse psychology to lure him into the damp catacombs" (Winks). Verbal irony plays a significant role in the story. We can see irony in Montresor's costume as well. Roger Platizky claims that the irony is intensified because he is "costumed as an executioner" (Platizky). Robert Stevenson observes even more irony in Fortunato's costume because he is a fool. He writes that Poe found the key to the story by "dressing the victim grotesquely" (Stevenson). In addition, the last thing we hear out of him is "the jingling of the bells upon his cap" (Stevenson). This image is one of that last ones we see as we realize the poor man is buried alive.

In "The Black Cat," the narrator provides all the irony we need with his troubled conversation. The most ironic thing we read in "The Black Cat," is the narrator's unstable state of mind. We should know that our first clue to his madness is his intent to assert that he is not. He writes, "Mad I am not" (Poe Black Cat 182), as he begins to pen one of the most insane narrations ever written. It is as if he is trying to convince himself of this lie. His alcoholism only makes matters worse as he wavers between extreme emotions. One moment, he loves the cat and the next moment, he hates the cat. He kills the cat to rid himself of it and, ironically, it haunts him. Of course, we cannot mention the story without mentioning how the narrator kills his wife in an effort to kill the cat. We can say that even this act is ironic because the narrator is so open about how he "buried the axe in her brain" (186). The narrator in this story is positive that that he is not mad. The irony is that he is perhaps one of the most mad of Poe's narrators in that he can never bee free from the cat regardless of what he does.