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

An author also uses the settings to elaborate on the surroundings or to distract one’s reader, to make way for introducing credibility or organization in a story or to make the things more 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, Poe’s approach was to select and reveal 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 tale’s mysteriousness, by leaving many questions unanswered.

The writer or the narrator never clearly mentions the locale of the story. It is the narrator’s reference to “palazzo”, which is the Italian for a palace and his knowledge of the Italian wines that amply corroborate 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 writer 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 one’s fancy to guess 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 pity 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 safe to say that it took place somewhere around 18th or 19th century, as Fortunato is depicted as being a Mason (Poe: Online).

Also, Montresor is shown as wearing 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 one’s 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 Montresor’s 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 piety associated with the carnival acts as a file which further accentuates the morbidity of Montresor’s intentions and strategy. The brooding sense of fear and threat are in a way get highlighted by the atmosphere in Montresor’s underground vault where both his wine and the skeleton’s of his family members reside (Poe: Online).

To the essentially American readers of Poe, these