Importance of setting and space: Explain specifically the representation of public, private spaces, or mysterious and undefined spaces.Please use...

Edgar Allan Poe, as a master of terror, uses every
mechanism possible to adhere the reader to the story, and to appeal to the senses and
emotions of the intended audience.

This being said, the use
of space and setting create the atmosphere that is required of Gothic stories to instill
in the reader the feeling of emptiness that comes as a result of a vast exposure to a
dry and cold setting. However, Poe's uniqueness as a writer is shown in the way that he
contrasts settings to create an even more terrifying
sensation.

For example, in The Cask of
Amontillado, the story begins in a cheerful and festive setting. People are
celebrating, drinking, eating, and having fun in the carnival. As it is known, the
carnival is similar to a Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, where people enjoy their most
sinful delights right before fasting for Lent.

It
was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I
encountered my friend. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking
much. The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head
was surmounted by the conical cap and bells. I was so pleased to see him that I thought
I should never have done wringing his
hand.

Similarly, Montressor allows Fortunato to
enjoy his festivities, for he is planning his death in a dark, damp, horrid and secluded
place. The three settings of a) the carnival,  b) the walk through the catacombs, and c)
Fortunato's grave,  are allegorical of a transition from heaven, to purgatory, and then
hell.

At the most remote end of the crypt there
appeared another less spacious. Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to
the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris. Three sides of this
interior crypt were still ornamented in this manner. From the fourth side the bones had
been thrown down, and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a mound of
some size. Within the wall thus exposed by the displacing of the bones, we perceived a
still interior crypt or recess, in depth about four feet, in width three, in height six
or seven. It seemed to have been constructed for no especial use within itself, but
formed merely the interval between two of the colossal supports of the roof of the
catacombs, and was backed by one of their circumscribing href="../../cask-amontillado-text/the-cask-of-amontillado#prestwick-vocab-bes-82"/>
walls of solid granite.

Poe brings a brilliance to
the narrative by making Montressor tell the story from his convoluted and obsessive
point of view. This actually makes the settings seem even more
tragic.

In all, the tragedy of the story is mainly
accentuated by the settings: From a lighthearted and festive carnival to the deep, dark
and scary isolation of a man-made grave in the catacombs, the story clearly goes from
light to darkness in a very small time frame.