Allegorical Message In The Masque Of The Red Death

The Black Death, also known as The Red Death, killed over sixty percent of Europe’s population. “The Masque of the Red Death”, written by Edgar Allan Poe, is about wealth and privilege, where the prince hides from the Red Death with his revelers. Poe uses symbols such as setting, objects, along with characters to reveal an allegorical theme. Thus being the theme, everyone will perish, even the wealthy and privileged.

The author, Edgar Allan Poe, using illusion or misdirection keeps the reader is suspense throughout this story called "The Masque of the Red Death". Symbolism such as the colored rooms, the impressive clock, the feeling of celebration being at a party all makes this story feel like a fairytale. Poe used this fairytale style and converts it into a nightmare in disguise.

In the words of Seneca the Younger, well-known Roman Philosopher, “Oh, what darkness does great prosperity cast over our minds!”. In Edgar Allan Poe’s 1842 story, “The Masque of The Red Death”. The story takes place during the 1300’s during the ravage that was the Bubonic plague, referred to as the Red Death by Poe. Many argue the identity of the narrator in this story, but it is lucid that they are a figure of biblical proportion due to Poe’s use of allusions to the Bible, “Tempest”, and the Red Death as an Anti-Christ.

In Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, “ The Masque of the Red Death”, Poe tells of a plague that has long devastated the country. The short story revolves around one character in particular, the wealthy Prince Prospero, and how he decides to deal with the situation. This narrative work is an allegory, meaning it has two levels of meaning. It has both a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning. An allegory has the overall purpose to teach you a life lesson. The allegory in this short story can be revealed by the symbolic significance of Prince Prospero’s name, the seventh chamber of the abbey, and the ticking clock.

The fires in each of the suite rooms serve as a representation of death. Poe depicts

To those homeless on the streets, a five dollar bill drifting in the wind, which so happens to land at their feet, may symbolize anything from hope to just a meal at McDonald’s. However, to others who are luckily more fortunate, it symbolizes something completely different. It is also ironic how if an everyday citizen loses a five dollar bill, it’s not a big deal to them; but if a povert lost a five dollar bill, it would bring them great despair. In the stories, The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe and The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, the literary elements, symbolism and irony, are applied heavily. The Masque of the Red Death is about a fatal plague which spread ferociously around a country, killing innocents within half an hour. There is a wealthy prince on the other hand who cheats death by locking him and a thousand of his friends in a castle full of food, drinks, and entertainment while thousands more die a tragic death on the streets everyday. This method doesn’t last for long, though. All the ‘fortunate’ people perish in the end by ‘the red death’. Having said that, The Lottery revolves around a society where each year, out of tradition, there’s a drawing and whoever is picked croaks. The themes conveyed in both short stories are that you can’t delay the inevitable because it will eventually bite back.

At the masquerade there were rooms of many different colors with elaborate designs and decorations. The westward one was the black and red with the ebony clock, and this room was not as colorful and happy as the others. Every time the ebony clock would strike, a silence would come over the guests. The sound of the clock and the of the eerie feel of the room, they avoided it at all costs (Poe 85-86). The reason why he decides to this room was because it reminded him of his reality. The room was a symbol of the darkness of the red death, the one thing he feared most. When that clock would go off, he was reminded of the deaths happening outside of his palace. Prince Prosper threw the party to forget the reality of his dying kingdom. Unfortunately, he stayed away and did not help his kingdom like a true leader. As a result of the prince ignoring the deaths of all his kingdom, he ended up dying of the disease he was afraid

In the story “Masque of the Red Death” there were many symbolic objects that states the ones in the church will not be able to escape death while trying to escape the church in haste to escape the Red Death that the stranger brought in. The three symbolic objects that I will talk about is the iron hinges on the doors, the ebony clock on the west wall, and the stranger that shows up to the party unexpectedly. First I will talk about the symbolic meaning of the iron hinges.

For example, the narrator describes the first room as, “in blue- and vividly blue were its windows” [3]. The direction of the rooms, beginning at the east, clearly symbolizes the beginning of life, similar to how the sun rises in the east. The color seems to stand for the idea of stability and security, while the windows themselves represent something quite similar: the perspective of confidence and intelligence. The blue colored windows leave the people attending the masquerade ball looking out into the real world, with the windows serving as a filter painted with optimism and intelligence. It allows the people to continue to ignore reality. Likewise, the following quote vividly describes the last room: “The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceilings and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon the carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet- a deep blood color…” [3]. This room remained empty until the last scene of the story, as no one had dared to enter this apartment. Because the color black is associated with death and because the eerie ebony clock had towered in this room, the apartment symbolized

The Masque of The Red Death is an allegory. An allegory is a poem that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning. In The Masque of The Red Death pretty much everything in the story is symbolic. For example the rooms, the clock, the prince, and the masked intruder are all important symbols. The Rooms are all very symbolic because they each represent a stage of life beginning with birth and ending at death.

Because inevitability of time and death seems to be the recurring theme, the most likely significance behind the number of apartments would be the seven stages of life. The first apartment is said to be placed most eastwardly and is blue in décor, which could signify the rising of the sun, the beginning of life, and the color of day. And the seventh, and most westerly apartment, is black with red accents and represents the end of life, the setting of the sun, and death. Poe did not intend a specific meaning for the number seven, just for the reader to be aware of the passing of time and the idea that the prince was trying to recreate a perfect world complete with "…all the appliances of pleasure…Without was the Red Death." (238). The Prince's recreation of the world is ironic because it is modeled after the one the Prince and his followers are trying to escape. The seven perfect rooms foreshadow the evitable downfall of perfection. The number seven appears six times in the text which may lead to some significance behind that number as well.

An allegory is a story intended to be read on a symbolic level, characters, settings and events are meant to have deeper meaningsindependent from the actions in the story. In “The Masque of the Red Death” there are seven rooms where Prince Prospero holds his masquerade ball, where each room is a specific color to represent different stages in life. My mask alligns with the symbolic meaning of each color in the short story along with additional mean all coming together to represent who I am as a person. I split my mask in half, one half representing the strong and hurt part of me, where the other half represents the ambitious fun side of me that most people see. The left side of the mask has colors such has black, dark red, purple, yellow

Poe uses allegory to allude to the double meanings of the characters Prince Prospero and the masked figure, as well as the setting of the chambers. Prince Prospero represents prosperity. While his nation is suffering from the “Red Death”, “…he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and lighthearted friends…and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbey” (420). His nobility and wealth give him the ability to ignore the horror around him and live in luxury. This refers to real life in that the privileged are the ones who are able to still live comfortably even if others are in a crisis. Prince Prospero also represents an ignorance, selfishness, and arrogance that come with wealth through right instead of hard work. He believes that “[t]he external world could take care of itself” and that it is “…folly to grieve, or to think” (420). Instead of taking action to help his people, he just leaves them in the grips of the “Red Death”. The “Red Death” is

2.) In Prospero 's abnormally designed castle, there were seven rooms that each had a different color, "for example, in blue--and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange-- the fifth with white-- the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was close shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the wall" (Poe 1). The color of each of the seven rooms represents several main ideas relating to the story. The blue room depicts a new beginning, as it starts from the eastern wing of the castle. While the purple room illustrates wealth and nobility, the green room represents growth, as it can relate to the outburst of growing grass. As the colors red and yellow mix to form orange, the orange room portrays Poe 's use of

In Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death” a plague (the Red Death) was ravaging the country and taking many victims to their ends. Prince Prospero was a very wealthy prince who decided that he was going to avoid the plague, so he gathered his knights and friends and walled them all up inside his palace before the plague could claim any of them. While the plague continued to rage on outside the walls, the Prince and his guests enjoyed a lavish masquerade party. The masquerade was held in seven rooms, each very different from one another and arranged so that one could only see one room at a time. The rooms were each shrouded in their own color; the last of the rooms was dark and black, and in it there was a clock that would ring each hour.