left to die of starvation, terror and madness. The fact that he had been so fortunate before that awful event only serves to make his fate that much more gruesome by contrast. He dies wearing the colorful jester's costume and the hat with little ringing bells. He was having a great time at the carnival until Montresor enticed him into his trap.

Life had been easy for Fortunato up to that point. The main difference between the two men is that one inherited a lot of money while the other is poor and has to struggle for to stay alive. Throughout the story Fortunato and Montresor sound like rich and poor men, respectively. Montresor is consistently polite, obliging, humble and obsequious. Even when Montresor is leaving Fortunato to die, he talks to him with pretended courtesy and consideration.

“Pass your hand,” I said, “over the wall; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed, it is very damp. 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.”

Fortunato's name, in Italian, translates to the fortunate one. However, he proves to be terribly unfortunate in that his enemy avenges himself on Fortunato and buries the man alive. Montresor, that enemy, has a number of requirements for his revenge: first, he must not incur any negative consequences for himself as a result of his revenge; second, he must make himself, as the avenger, known to Fortunato. In other words, Fortunato must know that it is Montresor who destroys him. Montresor says,

It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued, as was my in to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my to smile now was at the thought of his immolation.

We can see, then, that only Fortunato's complete destruction will suffice to satisfy Montresor. The word immolation never implies anything less. Irony is created when what we expect to happen is at odds with what actually happens, and, with a name like Fortunato, we would likely expect the man to be fortunate, right? However, because the reality defies our expectation, irony is created. This is why Fortunato's name is so ironic.

The name Fortunato comes from the Latin "fortunatus," meaning "lucky" or "prosperous." It is also very close to the English word "fortunate" from the same root. Fortunato, a wealthy, powerful man—a man to be respected and even feared, according to Montresor—appears to have been most fortunate in life, right up to the point when he is walled up in the vaults of Montresor's house and left to await a painful and lingering death.

Fortunato's death is a grisly one by any standards, and one could argue that anyone who meets such an end is obviously unlucky. Fortunato's bad luck, however, is particularly extreme, since the indications are that he did nothing to provoke it. Montresor talks vaguely of a thousand injuries and an insult, but he never gives an example of anything Fortunato is supposed to have said or done. Moreover, the willingness with which Fortunato follows Montresor into the vault shows that he is not aware of any quarrel and regards Montresor as his friend.

If we assume the two are about the same age and Montresor has survived for another fifty years, it also seems that Fortunato met his terrible death quite young, perhaps in his twenties—another instance of his bad luck.

Irony is when words or events mean the opposite of what we expect. The name Fortunato implies that the person bearing it will experience good fortune. So far in his life, this seems to have been the case for Fortunato, so much so that Fortunato is completely unprepared for any danger when he encounters Montresor.

Fortunato's name is ironic because he experiences one of the worst possible fates that could befall a person. Unbeknownst to him, he has insulted Montresor, and rather than let the insult pass, Montresor is bent on revenge. He lures Fortunato down into his catacombs with the promise that he will let Fortunato taste his amontillado, a type of sherry. Instead, he chains Fortunato in the damp cellar and walls him up to die slowly and alone.

Montresor opens Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado" by speaking of his desire to revenge some unknown insult to him by Fortuanato.  He lures Fortuanato into his wine cellar by telling him of this wonderful wine that Fortuanato must sample.  As they go deeper and deeper underground Montresor and Fortuanato continue a conversation.  Finally when they get to the part of the cellar that Montresor has prepared he seals Fortuanato up into a wall.  The irony of the name Fortuanato is that the name itself means fortune.  When we think of fortune we think of riches and good fortune.  Through the imprisonment of Fortuanato into the wall and his impending death it is ironic that the character's name fortells of his bad fortune in following Montresor into the wine cellar. 

Irony is created when what one expects to happen is the opposite of what actually happens in reality. For example, we would not expect to see the firehouse burn down, because it is filled with firefighters and firefighting equipment; if it did burn down, then, it would be quite the opposite of what we expect, and this would be ironic. Therefore, when we see that one character's name is Fortunato, which means fortunate one in Italian, we would likely expect that character to be very fortunate indeed. However, this character's fate, as it unfolds in the course of the story, is anything but fortunate. Through his own pride and arrogance, Fortunato has managed to create an enemy for himself out of a very cunning and clever man named Montresor. Montresor is a formidable foe: he figures out Fortunato's one "weak point"—his pride—and then exploits that weakness in order to lead Fortunato to a terrible death. Because Fortunato's fate is so horrible—the opposite of what we'd expect for a character with such a name—his name is ironic.

Edgar Allan Poe no doubt chose to use the name "Fortunato" in a deliberately ironic manner. The name is derived from the word "fortunate," and means "fortunate one." Fortunato was anything but fortunate in his dealings with Montressor. He was misled into thinking a rare and valuable bottle of Amontillado awaited him in the catacombs, but instead he became the victim of Montressor's murderous madness. In the end, the only fortunate person was Montressor, who succeeded in his perfect crime, hiding Fortunato's body where it would never be found.