SOURCE: "Victim and Victimizer: Poe's The Cask of Amontillado'," in Interpretations, Vol. 15, No. 1, Fall, 1983, pp. 26-30.

In the following essay, Engel discusses the narrative function of enclosure as a literary device in Poe's tale, focusing on the ways it affects and transforms the characters.

Edgar Allan Poe used the enclosure device, whether an actual physical enclosure or an enclosure alluded to on the level of image and metaphor, in a highly artistic way. In much of his fiction, and specifically in "The Cask of Amontillado" (1846), the device helps to focus the action, assists in plot development, and has a profound impact on the main character, often affecting his personality. In his essay "The Philosophy of Composition" Poe remarked, "A close circumscription of space is absolutely necessary to the effect of insulated incident:—it has the force of a frame to a picture."¹ A "circumscription of space," that is...