Poe and the Importance of the Crime Scene

Although a very popular series of books which later turned into enjoyable movies most people do not know how the creation of Sherlock Holmes truly came to be. Holmes character was largely inspired by Poe's character C. Auguste Dupin. Sir. Arthur Conan Doyle says "Each [of Poe's detective stories] is a root from which a whole literature has developed, where the detective story was until Poe breathed the breath of life into it?" Dupin was a fictional French Detective initially appearing in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", which was considered to be the first detective fiction story. Dupin is a brilliant character with a huge amount of intellect and a very inventive imagination; his abilities to do this are so strong that it appears he is capable of reading minds. The character Dupin shows that Edgar Allan Poe was not only a master mind of horror but also the originator of most elements in today's detective fiction shows and literature. .
             Another reason Edgar Allan Poe is the master mind behind literature as we know it today is because of his incredible use of irony and symbolism. In order to create the horror and tension in his stories and poems Poe uses dramatic and verbal irony. For example in "The Cask of Amontillado" the dramatic irony lies within the fact that the readers of this story are already aware that Fortunato will soon meet an unfortunate fate and that Fortunato himself has no earthly idea. This use of dramatic irony helps the readers to become anxious of what will become of Fortunato and if Montresor will really go through with killing him this also starts horrifying them with the fact of knowing how Montresor plans to kill him. The use of verbal irony is when the character of a story says something but actually means another, this happens fairly often throughout "The Cask of Amontillado". Examples of how verbal irony was used is how Montresor expresses a high amount of concern towards Fortunato and his health, recommending things such as leaving the catacombs and returning to the Carnival when indeed that is far from his intentions.