The Inevitability Of Death In Poe's The Masque Of The Red Death

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

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.

Edgar Allen Poe's “The Masque of the Red Death” is an extravagant allegory of the futility of trying to escape death. In the story, a prince named Prospero tries to avoid the Red Death through isolation and seclusion. He hides behind the impenetrable walls of his castle and turns his back on the rest of the world. But no walls can stop death because it is unavoidable and inevitable. Through the use of character, setting, point of view, and symbol, Poe reveals the theme that no one, regardless of status, wealth or power can stay the passing of time and the inevitable conclusion of life itself, death.

There are many theories of how Edgar Allan Poe died. One of the theories is alcohol. Poe was a heavy drinker as a young man so it is possible. Another theory is rabies. This is also a possible theory because of the symptoms he had in the hospital.

Prince Prospero in Masque of the Red Death written by Edgar Allan Poe is a Prince of his kingdom who escapes and eludes the Red Death sweeping throughout his kingdom killing all it comes into contact with. Prospero 's fight or flight reaction, a built in mechanism inside all humans and his reaction to fear of his own death ultimately lead to his downfall and instead of keeping him alive prove unable to beat the elutable and all mighty red death. Picture a scenario where you are put to the test to see your own flight or fight reaction, you and a few friends are on the train chatting about everyone’s most embarrassing moments. All of a sudden, someone comes from the other train car and yells, “Someone has a gun on the train!” This scenario

Time Takes Its Toll on All in Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe

Those who cannot afford to run from the Red Death. This is important because it will eventually wrap the entire story together. Poe wants to emphasize the theme being that no one can escape death. This is meant to include the rich and powerful. Prospero is royalty and seeing his town being destroyed by the Red Death, attempts to avoid it using all his wealth and power. Again Hubert Zapf explains in his essay that Prospero has created a "castellated abbey, whose architecture is a power-structure against the lower classes and against the Red Death." But nothing can keep death away, no matter who you are. This is a common element in Poe 's stories when dealing with death, and he makes it known by using the castle as the backdrop of the city being plagued.

Nobody Escapes Death Edgar Allan Poe’s story, “Masque of the Red Death”, is about a selfish prince who partied every day for about six months. He sealed off his castle against his people and the horrible disease that had been spread throughout the kingdom which was the Plague. He does not care about anyone other than himself. The hidden message in Edgar Allen Poe’s story is you can not avoid death no matter what.

Prince Prospero does not care for the outside world and leaves them to die at the plague’s hands. Poe details Prince Prospero’s response to the plague with, “When his dominions were half-depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys.” (Poe) Prince Prospero makes no effort to aid his people, instead, isolating himself and his friends to seek protection from the disease. Isolation plays a powerful role here in providing a means of protection that ultimately proves false when the Red Death itself comes into the abbey and all succumb to it. Isolation also serves to prove the failings of self-importance in that no one is above one another. In attempting to shield only themselves, those in the court exhibited a selfish importance that isolation fails to corroborate. Even isolating themselves, Prince Prospero and his courtiers fall victim to the Red Death the same as the rest of the world. As a theme in “The Masque of the Red Death”, isolation does not equate protection and to seek it with a self-important worldview is to bring destruction to yourself. In seeking isolated protection, Prince Prospero is thus exposed in his cowardice and is proven as equal to those dying outside the walls, for he falls victim to the Red Death as well.

Edgar Allen Poe and Ambrose Bierce had both written gothic fiction writing in the 18th century,who have written multiple stories in that genres. Two of these writing are; The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Poe, and One of the Twins by Ambrose Bierce, both of which contain different forms of gothic writings. These differences are due to different approaches of writing. This text will compare them according to the following criteria; the means the authors utilized to achieve the effect of horror, the type of narration used, and the delivered perspectives of the supernatural from the writers. Approaches of these authors varies but also share some similarities. So let’s explore these writings and get under their skins.

If we all know as humans that death is going to happen then why do we always try to prevent something so unbecoming. Death is inevitable and is a natural occurrence in human life. Death occurs to all human life, death has no judgement, rich or poor, popular or not, death will always be present.When we try to grab hold of death, we start to cause chaos and put things out of order. As for The Masque of the Red Death, we see this as a perfect example or symbol of why we cannot control death. In the “Masque of the Red Death”, Edgar Allan Poe uses the symbol of the seven rooms to reveal the idea that death is inescapable even though we try to contain it.

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

the Red Death shows the futile attempts by a prince and his guests of a party,

The red death is about a rich prince that thought he could outsmart death with money and ended up dying anyways. The red death is also based on the effects of the black death which killed millions of people in europe during the middle centuries. The red death is a very strange story written by edgar allen poe which describes the red death as being so deadly it kills within an half an hour. The story is very strange often including easy to miss symbolism.

Picture this. The father of modern crime and detective stories, known as Edgar Allan Poe, is sitting down about to write a beautiful piece of writing and BAM! He whisks away into a story of love, death, and just plain out horror; either characters are losing someone near and dear to their hearts or they are plotting to kill. Edgar Allan Poe, at a very young age, lost both of his parents, and later on in life, lost his wife to tuberculosis, so in one way or another, these stories reflect off of his personal experiences. A major theme in Poe’s writings is death. The theme of death is seen throughout the works of Annabel Lee, the Cask of Amontillado, the Raven, and the Black Cat.