Symbolism In Poe's The Masque Of The Red Death

By using different colors and directional location for symbolism, Poe reinforces this theme. For example, our notes directly state that the Seven Colored Rooms are arranged from east to west. These directional locations propose that the furthest to the east room represents birth and beginnings, then as you make your way through the other rooms, (the other stages of life), you finish in the western most room which

In the "Masque of the Red Death," the first sentence, "The Red Death had long devastated the country," sets the tone for the whole story. Poe describes the horrors of the disease, stressing the redness of the blood and the scarlet stains. The disease kills so quickly that one can die within thirty minutes of being infected with the disease. To create a frightening effect

In “Mask of the Red Death”, Edgar Allan Poe uses setting and symbolism to deliver the theme that no one escapes death. The story follows the naïve and pompous Prince Prospero, and his feeble attempt to escape dying from the Black Plague. As the plague spread through his kingdom, the prince called one thousand of his closest friends to reside within the safety of the castle in order to seclude themselves from the horror and death going on outside. During the last months of their seclusion, the prince decided to hold a masquerade ball in order to amuse his many guests living within the confines of the rather odd castle. The dance takes place in a variety of unusual apartments within the castle, spaced apart so the guests would only see one room at a time. The apartments flowed east to west, each decorated in a different color and theme while following a pattern of blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet and finally ending in black. During the ball, guests enjoyed a dreamlike atmosphere as they danced through the many colored apartments, each of them avoiding the final black room. This final dark patterned room contained a large ebony clock which chimed eerily every hour, causing the party goers to pause their merriment for a few moments of uneasy silence. As midnight drew near, a new guest arrived, sporting a costume more ghastly and morose than any other. The mask he wore resembled that of a plague victim, and his clothes resembled a funeral shroud. Prospero became angry

In Poe’s short story, The Masque of the Red Death, he makes it pretty apparent that there is no possible way to escape death, no matter what rank you are. To get across this message he uses the ticking of a clock and the ring every hour to remind you death happens no matter what you do. He also adds in seven different rooms of varying colors blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and black/scarlet. These seven rooms may represent a whole unit of time, like the days of the week. Poe also says that the rooms go east to west like the sun’s course. Every color of the room can also represent life itself, blue represents birth, purple is youth, green is adolescence, orange is adulthood, old age is white, imminent death is violet, then finally death itself is black/scarlet.

Everyone fears their own death, thus why some people will do anything to escape it. In Edgar Allan Poe's short story, “The Masque of the Red Death”, this fear is experienced by all. In the story, a prince named Prospero and his people try to elude the Red Death through seclusion and isolation in the prince's abbey. However, no walls can stop death since it is unavoidable and inescapable. Throughout the story, Poe uses symbols such as the rooms, the masked figure, and the clock to convey the theme that no one can escape death.

Starting off for the first symbol is “The Red Death” is symbolizing the plague and disease that is taking place in the Kingdom. In the story “ The Red Death” shows up the masquerade ball grabbing everybody’s attention. Poe tells us “ and now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night.”(394). No one would expect the Red Death to come in especially the prince. Who thought that he would be safe in his big castle. The prince sends his guards to run after the stranger, but the stranger gets away. The Prince gets away and the stranger leads him to the seventh room which is the next symbol. The prince follows the stranger into this room and the reason it symbolizes death because this is where he dies. Poe describes this room as “The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a 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.” (393). So even though the prince was all-powerful he still couldn’t keep himself safe from the

“The boundaries which divide Life from Death are best shadowly and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?” (Poe). There is no such thing as having the ability to predict or tame the wrath of death, for all we can do is learn to accept it. In the story, “The Masque of the Red Death”, the main character, Prospero, shows through his arrogant actions that death will forever overpower the human instinct to stay alive. Poe uses symbolism to convey the battle between man and nature through the idea of the masquerade that serves as a fortress against the wrath of the disease, an excuse to disguise the true colors of man, and the honest truth that man will never become immortal.

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.

One of the main symbols of death comes with the colours of each room in which the party was held. Each of the rooms described in this story represents a different phase of life, from infancy, leading up to death. From east to west, the rooms represent infancy/early childhood (blue), childhood (purple), adolescence (green), adulthood (orange), midlife crisis (white), golden age (violet), old age/death (black). In addition to each colour representing a different stage of life, it also correlates to the overarching mood or defining event that takes place in each stage, with blue being innocence, purple being creativity and exploration, green being growth, orange being independence and change, white being an inability to let go of childhood innocence/purity, violet being tranquility, and black being death. This colour symbolism proves to be applicable when considering that all the guests of Prince Prospero’s masque ran through the rooms quickly and died when they entered the final black room. When considering the symbolism of the room colours, it is clear that this action represents the revelers rushing through their life towards death,

In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “Masque of the Red Death” conceals how life has a beginning and ending by showing the seven stages of life of Shakespeare in the story. Edgar Allan Poe symbolizes the stages of life with colors by coordinating them in order from the beginning of life to the last stage of life. In the story the clock represents how life goes on and every minute of your life counts. The “Red Death” was a disease that everyone was dying from within half an hour and this shows how death is a disease that no one can escape from or live from. “Through all the stages of life, death is inevitable.”

While humans can possess dominance over several aspects of their worlds, mankind is simply vulnerable to their unyielding fate. In the allegory entitled “The Masque of the Red Death,” Edgar Allan Poe indirectly employs the concepts of life and death, along with their role in the course of human events. While the revelers make great attempts to obscure themselves from reality, the spectre of death is something unable to be hindered. Through the prominent use of symbolism, Poe communicates the uncompromising presence of death in one’s life, along with the futility of trying to escape from it.

The constant dread experienced throughout the story is contributed by the strange imagery, and peculiar wording. Each detail of the multicolored rooms added to the suspense, from the “writhing” dreams, to the irregular path. Each loud chime from ebony grandfather clock gave a bit of fear, and multiplied the expectations of the readers, from the exceedingly musical tone, to the nervous laughter of the guests that followed. And lastly, the figure added a slow, creeping danger, from the “dabbled” blood, to the unusual outcome of the Prospero attack, and lastly the death of everyone after the figure is disrobed and found to be nothing but an illusion. Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death,” while short, is still a masterpiece.

Edgar Allan Poe was a writer who believed every single word contained meaning and in his own words expressed this idea in brevity only he is capable, "…there should be no word written, of which tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design." (Poe 244). To this effect, Poe drenches his works in symbolism and allegory. Especially in shorter works, Poe assigns meaning to the smallest object, explicitly deriving exurbanite significance within concise descriptions. "The Masque of the Red Death" tells the story of a Prince Prospero who along with his one thousand friends sought a haven from the plague that was ravishing their country. They lived together in the prince's luxurious abbey with all the amenities and

Poe’s use of symbolism is very evident throughout the story of “The Masque of the Red Death”. Much has been made about the meaning of the rooms that fill Prince Prospero’s lavish getaway. One such critique, Brett Zimmerman writes, “It is difficult to believe that a symbolist such as Poe would refuse to assign significance to the hues in a tale otherwise loaded with symbolic and allegorical suggestiveness” (Zimmerman 60). Many agree that the seven rooms represent the seven stages of human existence. The first, blue, signifying the beginnings of life. Keeping in mind Poe’s Neo-Platonism and Transcendentalism stance, the significance of blue is taken a step further. Not only does blue symbolize the beginning of life, but the idea of immortality is apparent when considering these ideas. “Perhaps ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ then, is not quite the bleak existential vision we have long thought it to be”, expounds Zimmerman (Zimmerman 70). Poe’s use of each color is significant to the seven stages

In the story “The Masquerade Of The Red Death”, Edgar Allen Poe describes how gruesome the red death is. For example, "There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the sympathy of his fellow men." (145). Poe describes how disgusting the disease is, and establishes the mood and setting throughout the story. This points to why the guests react to the blood stained intruder. Color is also used as symbolism in the story, representing the seven stages of life. The story progresses