Question

Which two sentences contribute to the overall eerie mood of this excerpt from "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe?

The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled. My own fancy grew warm with the Medoc. We had passed through long walls of piled skeletons, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost recesses of the catacombs. I paused again, and this time I made bold to seize Fortunato by an arm above the elbow.

"The nitre!" I said; "see, it increases. It hangs like moss upon the vaults. We are below the river's bed. The drops of moisture trickle among the bones. Come, we will go back ere it is too late. Your cough --"

"It is nothing," he said; "let us go on. But first, another draught of the Medoc."

I broke and reached him a flagon of De Grave. He emptied it at a breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He laughed and threw the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not understand.

I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the movement --a grotesque one.

Answer 1

When a person reads he/she feels a certain way driven by the words in the text, this is called mood and it has to do with word choice, imagery, and figures of speech that are used in a story. This helps create a distinct feeling for audiences. The two sentences which contribute to the overall eerie mood of this excerpt from Poe in "The Cask of Amontillado" are the two first beginning “The wine sparkled…” and "The nitre!" I said;”

By describing the environment surrounding Fortunado and Montressor as they walk down a long passage through catacombs and wine vaults, Poe sets the tone of the scene.