Montresor greets his victim: "My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day!" What makes this verbal irony?

Fortunato toasts "to the buried that repose around us," and Montresor answers, "And I to your long life." Why is Montresor's toast ironic?

In the vaults Montresor tells Fortunato, "You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was." What makes the line ironic?

Chained to the granite, Fortunato hears: "Once more let me implore you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. But I must first render you all the little attentions in my power." What makes it ironic?

Fortunato cries, "For the love of God, Montresor!" and Montresor answers, "Yes... for the love of God!" What makes the echo ironic?

The story never tells the reader what Fortunato's "insult" to Montresor actually was.

Montresor's second sentence begins, "You, who so well know the nature of my soul." What does the story withhold about this "you"?

Montresor ends his account: "For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them." What does that closing tell the reader about the narrator?

After the screams stop and the bells jingle from inside the niche, Montresor says, "My heart grew sick on account of the dampness of the catacombs." What is he doing as a narrator here?

Early on, Montresor tells the reader that he kept smiling in Fortunato's face. What does he say Fortunato never perceived?

Which of these happens FIRST?

Fortunato drinks the Medoc and toasts "the buried that repose around us." What does he do next?

Which of these happens LAST?

At what point in the descent does Montresor first show Fortunato the trowel?

Which of these does Montresor do only AFTER Fortunato is chained to the granite?

Fortunato's cough and the nitre on the vault walls come up again and again on the way down. What does that repeated detail accomplish?

Fortunato wears motley, a tight-fitting parti-striped dress and a conical cap and bells. What does Poe get from that costume?

Poe has the murderer narrate the story himself, in the first person, half a century later. What does that structural choice accomplish?

The recess is roughly four feet deep, three wide and six or seven high, backed by a wall of solid granite holding two iron staples. What does this detail accomplish?

Montresor's servants are at home in the palazzo when he brings Fortunato back from the carnival.