Comparing My Kids Dog and The Cask of Amantillado Essay

Ron Hansens My Kids Dog and Edger Allen Poes The Cask of the Amontillado have similar tones expressed. Tone is the authors implied attitude towards the characters or events in the literary work. My Kids Dog is a revenge story with a humorous and sarcastic tone, and The Cask of Amontillado is a horror story with a dark sarcastic tone. In Hansens story, the family dog dies and the father decides to bury the dog. The father then becomes worried about the dog, and then decides to take him to the vet. The car was out of gas, so he puts the dog in a suitcase. While the father is walking, a man offers him a ride and asks what is in the suitcase. The father tells him it is a family heirloom, and the man took the suitcase and sped away. In Poes story, Monresor was insulted by Fortunato, and Monresor must have revenge. He meets Fortunato, who is dressed as a jester and drunk, and Monresor mentions he has found a rare wine called Amontillado. Fortunato wants to verify its authenticity. Monresor takes Fortunato down deep into the catacombs, chains, and blocks in Fortunato. Monresor psychologically tortures Fortunato and then leaves him to die in the catacombs. Both stories express a similar tone of sarcasm and a revenge story.In My Kids Dog, the problem begins with the narrator, the father, discovering the dog dead in the yard on day. He decides to bury the dog to spare the family the grief of the dogs death. In keeping with the tone of sarcasm, Hansen suggested that the father will tell his family that the dog join the circus or had run afoul of Cruella De Vil (585). Another instance when the tone of sarcasm is present is when the dog is not referred to as one name, but the stereotypical dog names such as Spot, Fido, or Scruffy (584-585). The tone in Hansens story...