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Prince Prospero Theme Of Death

Decent Essays

Death is inevitable is the overall theme of the story because death has been and still is a mystery that has generated both fear and horror. The fear and horror generated is an inspiration in subjects that may involve topics of death, the prevention of death even resurrection from death. Poe is greatly influenced by death and one of his characters in the story Prince Prospero took drastic steps to avoid and escape from death. Symbolism is a figure of speech used when an author wants to create a certain mood or emotion in a work of literature; it is the use of an object, person, situation or words to represent something else like an idea in literature(Gill,2006;182).’’Symbolism plays an important role in literature’’ (Knowles, 2006; 129-131). …show more content…

The stages of life in each chamber mean: “one; an infant, mewling and poking in the nurse's arms. Two; the whining of the schoolboy with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail. Three; a lover sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad. Four; a soldier full of strange oaths and bearded like the part. Five; the justice in fair round belly with good capon lined. Six; sixth age shift into the lean and slippered pantaloons. Seven; second childishness and mere oblivion’’ (Shakespeare; …show more content…

In this case Prince Prospero represents or symbolize how out of touch the upper class was with the lower class in society. Perhaps Prospero and his revellers felt they deserved to live and the lower class did not simply because they had money and power. At the end of Poe’s story, however the strike of clock literally becomes a funeral toll as all the revellers experiences death’s strike. Just as the Red Death is viewed from the distance by Prospero and as an abstraction to people. Poe depicts the Red Death as a physical being not an abstraction as death is, this cause Prospero and the revellers to realize and admit that death exists. And since Prospero has ignored and avoided death’s existence by finding escape in his castle, Prospero ends up confronting death through the affliction that is his own mortality; Prospero’s confrontation with the Red death leads him to die by his own dagger in the hands of the Red Death. It is indeed true that there is no escaping death has it will literally happen no matter what a person might do to avoid or escape it. My aim was to relate the significance of the symbols to the theme and in the paragraphs I have proven this by describing each symbol in details and have shown how all of them show the theme of

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