Book Reports /
(macabre and eerie mood) The Cask of Amontillado Essay [4]
(Rough Draft Please give feedback and correction especially in my intoduction and conlusion
My teacher does not want be verbs--is, are, were, be , been, being, was
Also could you look at my last sentence...my teacher wants it to be the "clincher" but mine is not strong enough and need advice on how to change it)
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This is my final draft!
The paper is due tomorrow...
Edgar Allan Poe, an American writer and poet, once said, "Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality". So to "impress the mind," Edgar Allan Poe carefully crafts the sentences in his tales to create his famous bizarre, grim, and spine-chilling stories. Because of this, Poe applies and manipulates various literary elements and writing techniques to constitute a terrifying and gruesome mood in many of his works. Using the techniques of setting and foreshadowing, Edgar Allan Poe establishes an eerie mood in the short story "The Cask of Amontillado". .
By utilizing setting as a technique, Edgar Allan Poe constructs an eerie mood in the reader's mind. Poe vividly depicts the setting as the "inmost recesses of the catacombs" with "long walls of piled skeleton" and "casks" when Montressor leads Fortunato down to his future grave (211). As a result, the details of the dead in the setting instill a sense of horror in the reader. Furthermore, the author once again describes the setting as a place where "the bones had been thrown down, and lay promiscuously upon the earth" (212). The horrendous description and imagery of the bones scattered all over the floor in the setting adds on to the eerie mood that Poe develops in many of his short stories.
Employing the technique of foreshadowing also helps to generate a frightening mind-set, which in turn creates an eerie mood. From the introduction of this short story, Poe already reveals Fortunato's death through Montressor's statement to "not only punish but punish with impunity" after he "vowed revenge" when Fortunato "ventured upon insult" (209). The foreshadowing of Montressor's dreadful and terrifying revenge sets a sinister and eerie mood as well as a mysterious one, for the reader does not know whether Montressor's murder is justified or not. Finally, Montressor's smile at Fortunato "at the thought of his immolation" foreshadows Fortunato's horrible death (209). The fact that Montressor finds enjoyment in Fortunato's death formulates disturbing and ominous atmosphere in the story.
The details of setting and foreshadowing and their effect to create a macabre and eerie mood reveal Edgar Allan Poe's brilliance and his effort. Clearly, the literary elements of a story and the author's writing techniques have a powerful influence on its effectiveness and strength. Edgar Allan Poe's mysterious and yet cryptic style of writing uses precise and meaningful words to create an influential impact that inspires thousands of readers and writers worldwide. Poe proves that words can be wielded as a powerful tool, a nightmarish weapon to shock and scintillate those who fall under his spell.
For the conclusion paragraph, my techer told me to go broader
Do you think the main point kind of switches in the 3rd and the last sentence of the Conclusion or do you think it flows well?
