The Masque Of The Red Death Research Paper

The characters in the story are also symbols that add to the theme. The protagonist, Prince Prospero, symbolizes wealth and privilege. The word prosper means financially successful. This adds depth to his title and adds on to how his name is a symbol in the story. Prospero’s wealth allows him to gather his revelers to his abbey, where the revelers hide from the Red Death. His revelers, which are high-ranking people in the government, represent reliance and fear. These followers rely on Prospero for safety from the Red Death. “There were many individuals beginning to notice the ominous individual”(Poe 377).

In “The Tell Tale Heart”, the eye, a major symbol, is described as a vulture’s eye, always watching the narrator. The narrator despises the eye to an extreme that he begins to think of the eye as a separate object from the old man. He starts to go insane and obsesses over the eye. Focused only on the eye, the narrator becomes fearful of the eye, fearful of judgement from the eye. The narrator tells us “One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture … Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold: and so by degrees- very gradually- I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever” (74). Out of fear from the eye and no restraint over his obsession, he does not think or react properly. Fear affected the narrator in a dangerous way and was able to convince him to do unscrupulous things. After the narrator is no longer clouded by fear, of the eye, he comes to his senses and realizes that his actions through fear was not moral. Because of his actions out of fear, the narrator feels guilty. The result of fear is different when it comes to Prince Prospero in “The Masque of Red Death”. Death and sickness is passing over Prince Prospero’s kingdom. Prince Prospero becomes fearful and obsessive of Death, like in “The Tell Tale Heart”; thus locking himself, along with Death inside his castle. The Prince became so fearful of Death he made sure that he was away from death at any costs. Focusing and worrying over death made Prince Prospero obsess over his future. Fear also clouded his thoughts, therefore Prince Prospero could not think properly with logic. Because of his ill actions and thinking, he wasn’t able to see Death in his castle. Because of his ill actions and thinking, his fate resulted in death. Obsession and fear over one object lead to death and guilt. It shows how fear can cloud your mind and persuade,or lead, people to do

In the short story, “Masque of the Red Death”, Edgar Allen Poe uses characterization to illustrate the psychological destruction of the Prince. Throughout the story, Prince Prospero struggles with

As the human race is always persistent in coming up with new innovations, they have yet to solve one problem: death. The following tale about to unfold before you is an emblem that death is inevitable. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death” may seem like a grotesque story, but in reality it shows the symbolism that no one can escape their fate. This story shows that the amount of wealth you have is no match for your ultimate demise.

Edgar Allen Poe’s chilling short story Mask of the Red Death begins with people dropping like flies, as the king of the land decides to take his close friends with him to live in one of his palaces. leaving his subjects to survive on their own. A puzzling creature known as the Red Death has been terrorizing and killing off people one by one, and no one has a way to stop it. Through characterization of both Prospero and the Red Death, Poe foreshadows Prospero’s eventual death in the end of the story.

“The Masque of the Red Death,” a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, tells the story of Prince Prospero and his futile attempts to prevent death. During his masquerade party, the prince notices an unusual figure, dressed as the Red Death, and, enraged at the sight of it, Prospero tries to kill it. Poe uses the seventh room, the ebony clock, and the Red Death itself as symbols of death throughout his story.

Prince Prospero decorates lavishly for the masquerade ball. Each room has a different color as a theme, and the windows contain glass stained to match the respective colors of the rooms. Fair colors paint the faces of everyone. At first they wear masks for the ball, but at the story's conclusion, they all bear the bloody mark that signifies the Red Death. The Red Death, which is characterized by ‘scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim,’ has entered the palace unrecognized (“Explanation”

Edgar Allen Poe, completely transformed the horror genre with his tales reflecting the psychological depth and insight of the the human conditon not previously seen (Poe Museum, no date). Despite his alignment with the horror genre, he was initially taken in by the romantic ideals of consumption. This is portrayed in one of his early short stories, ‘Metzengerstein’, from 1832, where despite the majority of the story following many gothic conventions, the protaganist’s mother dies of consumption. The narrrator of the story asserts that ‘…it is a path I have prayed to follow…I would wish all I love to perish of that gentle disease’ when referring to the mother’s impending death. The narrator’s desperation to die from consumption is implied through the use of the verb ‘prayed’. This verb has connotations of wishing or hoping strongly for a particular outcome (Oxford Dictionaries, 2017): despite the horrific and drawn out process of the disease that we now understand in the 21st Century, this character still desires it thus reflecting the general insensitivty towards the disease. Although influenced early in his career by the romanticized stance on consumption, he changed his portrayal of the disease completely in his short story ‘The Masque of the Red Death’, published in 1842. Very little had advanced in the medical understanding of consumption, but between Poe writing the aforementioned text and ‘The Masque of the Red Death’, his own wife had contracted the disease

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

Prince Prospero lives in the era of 1500’s when a disease called the Red Death, occurs. The setting of the story has an eerie, dark view that mirrors what the ‘red death’ is which increases the fear of death to the kingdom. Edgar then writes about the Prince’s motives to move a thousand friends along with entertainment into isolation far away from the kingdom. In this part of the story, the reader can see that Prince Prospero is considered a symbol within himself and has some personality traits greater than others. Prince Prospero’s name is meant to symbolize prosperity, money, stature, and power.

The harsh irony of “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Masque of the Red Death” shows running from your fears instead of confronting them only encourages it to find one even faster. The old man in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” for instance, isolates himself in his room because of his fear of death. The narrator explains, “So you see he would be a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.”(75). This quote suggests that the old man knows that someone is watching him, and because of this he becomes paranoid that the person watching him will kill him. Like “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the main character in “The Masque of the Red Death,” Prince Prospero, runs away from death and: “summoned to

Prince Prospero proves to be extremely egotistical, his subjects have little to no value to him, as well as his self-importance caused him to act before thinking. This example shows his egotistical tendencies, “the external world can take care of itself” (Poe 2). This happened when the “red death” had spread through his subjects, his ideology is to save himself along with the rich subjects that lived with him. Instead of trying to protect the majority of his subjects along with himself, he allowed it to become a mass exodus of disease through his kingdom. As well as him discovering, “his vesture was dabble in blood” (Poe 7). This was when Prospero discovered his valuable vesture had blood on it. Even though he tried he couldn't protect himself from the inevitable. He was later murdered due to his actions by an unknown source. His poor judgment lost him his life, and his chances of saving his assets; his

Have you ever read a story where fantasy is the reality and things do not quite make sense? This is true for “The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allen Poe. In it is a version of the black plague, which is called the “Red Death”. Prince Prospero secludes a thousand friends and himself from the death around them, but finds that he cannot avoid the inevitable. The author uses many literary devices to create an interesting and meaningful story. One of the devices used is imagery, which evokes the events of the story clearly in the reader’s mind. Another is allegory, which is used by Poe to create another story within his, as it is filled with double meanings. Lastly, Poe utilizes symbolism to give the story meaning. Edgar Allan Poe uses

With a kingdom in ruins and people dying of disease all around him, Prince Prospero is consumed with no worry except to throw a fabulous masquerade ball for his knights and maidens safely tucked away in his castellated abbey. Separated from the rest of the kingdom dying from disease, Prince Prospero is a coward, afraid of Red Death. Prince Prospero is not an admirable character because of his attempts to cheat death which make him a fool, and by leaving the people of his kingdom to fend for themselves.

The Prince did what any normal human would and tried to run. The Prince got some wealthy people tried to run a fact of this would be when he had his man seal the gates so no one could get in. There are many other ways he could have done this like try really hard to find a cure or a real good remedy for the symptoms. The Prince tried really hard to stay alive by going after the red death itself but he was not able to stop it so he dies. Prince Prospero's could have gone down another path instead of running behind a gate but he did what he could.