The Cask Of Amontillado Mood Essay

Mood within a work of literature refers to the overall atmosphere a piece of writing conveys; as it creates an emotional situation that surrounds the readers. The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe creates a dark, suspenseful, and sinister mood for the audience. Poe successfully creates such a mood with the use of literary techniques, such as, imagery, point of view, and foreshadowing. The dark, suspenseful, and sinister mood in The Cask of Amontillado is primarily created with imagery. Poe uses riveting descriptions to reveal the unsettling visualization of the catacombs, in which Montresor leads Fortunato into in search of the wine, Amontillado. By way of illustration, Poe describes the catacombs as “Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the …show more content…
The Cask of Amontillado is dominated by first person point of view. By writing in first person point of view, Poe allows the reader to, in a way, enter the mind of Montresor and witness his thought process. For example, when Montresor is laying the fourth tier of masonry, he hears the cries of Fortunato and the vibrations of the chains that Fortunato is locked to and, “The noise lasted for several minutes, during which, that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labours and sat down upon the bones. When at last the clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel, and finished without interruption the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh tier” (76). Here, the reader can see that Montresor ceased his work and sat down upon skeletal remains only to enjoy the cries as well as the Fortunato's attempt to release himself from the chains by aggressively shaking them. The reader understands that Montresor gains a great deal of joy from hearing Fortunato suffer. Since The Cask of Amontillado is written in first point of view, the reader gains an in depth screening of Montresor’s thoughts and a sinister mood is further

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