Short Stories: Literary Elements

Directions: Read the following passage and choose the best response to each question.

He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me familiarly, while his bells jingled.

“I drink,” he said, “to the buried that repose around us.”

“And I to your long life.”

He again took my arm, and we proceeded.

“These vaults,” he said, “are extensive.”

“The Montresors,” I replied, “were a great and numerous family.”

“I forgot your arms.”

“A huge human foot d’or, in a field azure; the foot crushed a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel.”

“And the motto?”

“Nemo me impune lacessit” [“No one harms me unpunished”].

Which details from the passage best indicate Montresor’s use of verbal irony?

Directions: Read the following passage and choose the best response to each question.

He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me familiarly, while his bells jingled.

“I drink,” he said, “to the buried that repose around us.”

“And I to your long life.”

He again took my arm, and we proceeded.

“These vaults,” he said, “are extensive.”

“The Montresors,” I replied, “were a great and numerous family.”

“I forgot your arms.”

“A huge human foot d’or, in a field azure; the foot crushed a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel.”

“And the motto?”

“Nemo me impune lacessit” [“No one harms me unpunished”].

In the context of the passage, the word “repose” most nearly means

No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let if fall within. There came forth only a jingling of the bells. My great grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so. I hastened to make an end of my labor. I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-elected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat [Rest in peace]!

How does Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” develop the speaker’s point of view?

No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let if fall within. There came forth only a jingling of the bells. My great grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so. I hastened to make an end of my labor. I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-elected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat [Rest in peace]!

Which details from the passage best indicate the story’s ironic ending?

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying in his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.

Which setting details from the passage best imply Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state at this stage of the story?

There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.

Which statement best summarizes a central idea of the work?