How do the tones and setting of Poe's stories affect the reader's response to the characters (in "The Cask of Amontillado" and others) ?

Many of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories ("The Cask of
Amontillado," "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Masque of the Red Death," "The Pit and the
Pendulum") are set in dark places in the middle of the night. The settings create a tone
of mystery, evil and foreboding. Most of the characters are suspicious, and their
actions often involve murder (Montresor in "The Cask," the narrator in "The Tell-Tale
Heart"). Even the characters who are subjected to the torture and death are not
completely innocent: Fortunato ("The Cask") is guilty of unnamed crimes; the old man
("The Tell-Tale Heart") has an evil, "vulture eye." Poe's settings nearly always contain
a Gothic element, with

readability="12">

... medieval castles... mystery, horror,
violence, ghosts, clanking chains, long underground passages, and dark
chambers.

These Gothic
settings create an atmosphere of terror, supernatural wonder and an expectation of the
unexpected.