Anxious is the way a person feels before taking a big test or waiting for someone to scare them at a haunted house. The short story “Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe leaves the reader anxious about what may happen. On the celebratory day of Carnival, Montresor leads drunken Fortunato through a dirty catacomb with the promise of giving him the precious wine, amontillado. Fortunato is chained to the wall and trapped in the catacombs by Montresor. He builds a wall of bricks around Fortunato and leaves him to die. Montresor does this because Fortunato has insulted him. The mood of the story is anxiety because the reader has a feeling that something bad is going to happen from the beginning of the story. This story makes the reader anxious by use of irony and the choice of setting. …show more content…
In the catacombs, Montresor urges Fortunato to continue drinking. Fortunato says, “I drink,’ he said, ‘to the buried that repose around us,” and Montresor replies “And I to your long life” (Poe 61). What Montresor says is ironic because he is planning to murder Fortunato the same night that he drinks to Fortunato’s “long life.” Because this is ironic, Montresor seems more deceitful than he did before, making the reader feel anxious because it is known that Montresor is going to take his revenge on Fortunato. While the reader feels anxiety about the hints of Fortunato’s death, the dirty air in the catacombs causes Fortunato to cough. Montresor tells him, “We will go back; your health is precious,” but Fortunato refuses saying, “Enough…The cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill me” (Poe 61). This is ironic because Fortunato is unknowingly and willingly walking to his own death while Montresor tells him to turn back. The irony of their conversations causes the reader anxiety because Fortunato had the chance to escape his death but he has a part in his own