Foreshadowing is a warning or hint of an event that is going to occur later on in a story, movie, or novel. In "The Cask of Amontillado," Poe uses foreshadowing by suggesting something very bad is going to befall the clueless Fortunato. We learn in the first paragraph that Fortunato has injured Montresor in unspecified ways and that Montresor has revenge in mind. This warns the reader that revenge will be central to this tale. Other instances of foreshadowing include the fact that Montresor's servants are all away partying during the Mardi Gras, leaving his house empty and leading the reader to wonder why Montresor doesn't want anybody around. Secresy, including taking Fortunato deep into the catacombs, far from any human eyes, makes us nervous about what Montresor has in mind. We don't do evil deeds before witnesses, if we can avoid it. Further, once they are in the catacombs, Montresor, knowing his "friend" will refuse, urges Fortunato to "go back before it is too late." He seems, in the moment, to be responding to Fortunato's cough, but the ominous words "before it is too late" hint that Montresor has a plan in mind. The fact that the two lead characters are surrounded by the bones of dead bodies foreshadows death.
All through the story, Montresor suggests that he is going to do something terrible, and the end of the story does not disappoint. At the end, we might be shocked, but we probably are not surprised: Poe has given us enough indications of Montresor's intentions that the fantastic murder is believable to us.
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
What foreshadowing can be seen when Montresor ensures the secrecy of his actions?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Why is the fact that the Americans are helping the Russians important?
In the late author Tom Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt for Red October, the assistance rendered to the Russians by the United States is impor...
-
There are a plethora of rules that Jonas and the other citizens must follow. Again, page numbers will vary given the edition of the book tha...
-
The poem contrasts the nighttime, imaginative world of a child with his daytime, prosaic world. In the first stanza, the child, on going to ...
-
The given two points of the exponential function are (2,24) and (3,144). To determine the exponential function y=ab^x plug-in the given x an...
-
The only example of simile in "The Lottery"—and a particularly weak one at that—is when Mrs. Hutchinson taps Mrs. Delacroix on the...
-
Hello! This expression is already a sum of two numbers, sin(32) and sin(54). Probably you want or express it as a product, or as an expressi...
-
Macbeth is reflecting on the Weird Sisters' prophecy and its astonishing accuracy. The witches were totally correct in predicting that M...
-
The play Duchess of Malfi is named after the character and real life historical tragic figure of Duchess of Malfi who was the regent of the ...
No comments:
Post a Comment