Evil resides in the fall of night
Evil resides in the fall of night Part I In the story “The Cask of Amonitillado,” by Edgar Allan Poe, a seemingly maddened narrator, Montresor, relates how he has managed to wreak revenge on a friend, Fortunato, for some unexplained injustice. The reader learns that the narrator lures Fortunato into the Montresor burial vaults and then seals him away to die there. This plot, through relatively straightforward, leads the reader into an experience of horror. And the story’s setting contributes greatly to this ever-increasing, atmosphere of horror, as Poe’s frightful setting cause the reader to anticipate, dread, an be absorbed in the unfolding action. The time of day and year in which the story takes place introduces an element of tension and foreshadowing to the story. Montresor informs the reader that when he first encounters Fortunato with revenge on his mind it at “about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend,” (345). As the reader already knows that Montresor intends revenge against his friend the very mention of “dusk” evokes the sense that darkness and all that is fearful about the dark, may follow.