My selected topic for the research project was “The Carnival Season as Context in “The Cask of Amontillado.” I decided to focus on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” for this exercise because I was intrigued by the short story that epitomizes betrayal, vengeance, and irony predominant throughout the text. The topic allowed me to explore these themes in detail and appreciate the author’s deftness in presenting the story that culminated in Fortunato’s miserable and untimely demise. Although “Carnival” in essence suggests life and energy among throngs of people, Fortunato finds himself confined in the cold catacombs and isolated from the merrymaking group above him and facing the prospects of slow death. Fortunato’s name is ironic because the character becomes unfortunate at the hands of the vindictive Montresor. Additionally, Fortunato meets his death while pursuing thrills from drinking the amontillado in the dungeons. One of the texts that I considered most suitable for this project was Büyükkarcı’s article that analyzed the binary constructs representing physical space in Poe’s short story. As Büyükkarcı (2021) indicated, the construct of spatialization is widely presented in “The Cask of Amontillado” to portray contrasting images throughout the short story. The question that I had from the research was does Poe use the idea of space to reinforce the theme of betrayal, vengeance, and irony in the short story?
Reference
Büyükkarcı, O. (2021). Is it the door through death what scares us? An analysis of The cask of amontillado between semiotics and narratology interface. Journal of Narrative and Language, 9(16), 34-56.