The Theme of Death in the works of Edgar Allan Poe

It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong . The Cask of Amontillado , Edgar Allan Poe

In The Cask of Amontillado , one of Poe 's short stories , death is a prominent theme . The main character wishes to exact revenge upon Fortunato . The narrator never says what Fortunato has done to wrong him only that he has . The narrator coldly and clearly leads Fortunato into his own wine cellars to show him a rare bottle of wine , an Amontillado . The narrator

is perfectly calm and rational as he does this . He offers , graciously , to turn back several times due to Fortunato 's poor health - Fortunato refuses , because he is so interested in the wine . Once in the basement , he calmly chains his friend to the wall and builds a brick wall to seal a portion of the cellar off effectively burying his friend alive . He plans this death , and is not greedy or excited by it - he carries out his entire plan with incredible detachment . The final line of the story describes how the wall still remains , years later . There is almost a note of pride in having carried off this death so carefully and calmly

It is this attitude that makes Poe 's stories so vividly terrifying at times . Horror was not uncommon in the nineteenth century , but no one was as fascinated as Poe with the exact process of death , and the emotions that went along with it (Scharf . The matter-of-fact way that Poe 's characters handle death at times (particularly in this example ) is what makes the story so scary . Death is bad enough , but cold-blooded death is something else entirely

Poe wrote many other stories that focused around death . In The House of Usher ' two...