In Edgar Allen Poe’s story, “The Masque of the Red Death”, Prospero turns his palace into an eerie venue for his party. The party is thrown in the midst of a plague that has spread rapidly within several months, but Prospero locked his palace to keep the illness out. When Prospero throws the celebration, he decorates rooms in his house with a different single color each. The room furthest East is blue, and is followed by purple, then green, orange, white, then violet, with the last room – the room farthest West – being black and red. The first six rooms are visited by the guests, but the last room is avoided. When a mysterious character enters the party, dressed like death and showing symptoms of the plague, he walks through each room, terrifying
For instance, the panes were scarlet, a deep blood colour. The "bloody" red room thus becomes a place of ending not only due to the westward location, but also because of its color. Poe describes the last, black room as the dreadful endpoint, the room the guests fear just as they fear death. The room is feared by the guests because it reminds them of death, which is why no one enters the room. The room is involved in all of the main scenes throughout the course ofthe story. For example, this is the room Prince Prospero and his guests die from the Red Death and also where the clock is located. The reader sees how important the rooms are throughout the story and its main contribution to the theme.
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”
Throughout the gothic horror short story, “The Masque of the Red Death”, Edgar Allan Poe illustrates the struggle of an egotistical prince who refuses to face the inevitable reality of death. Through the downfall of the protagonist, Poe establishes the idea that the inability to face reality often leads to the destruction of the mind. The downfall of the Prince is emphasized by Poe’s use of characterization, setting, and symbolism.
In Prince Prospero’s castle, he had a hallway of seven rooms. The rooms went from one direction to another, starting in the east, changing by color as they went. Poe mentioned, “That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue- and vividly blue were its windows” (84). The symbol of the rooms one and seven represents new life and death. With this, Poe shows how the room started in the eastern extremity, just as the sun rises from the east, and is blue just as blue symbolizes life. Poe also writes, “The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung down the walls” (84). In this quote, he shows how the last room was black, which symbolizes death. This last room was in the far western extremity. This shows that this was the last room, and everything must end there. Consequently, many people did not notice the two different colors in the room. The first color of that room was black, which was death. The other color was red which can symbolize blood. Also, the colors of these rooms showed how the death could not be kept out. Above all, these colors the stages of life. Therefore, the colors of the rooms showed what was
The main character, Prince Prospero, secludes himself along with one thousand of his friends inside his abbey. Without any worries, the Prince throws parties and gives his guests plenty of pleasure. What they do not realize is that the red death is able to get through their security, ultimately leading to their deaths. Throughout the story, Poe uses all kinds of symbols that convey meaning. However, the most significant of the symbols are the
When it comes to reading literature the most challenging yet important task is to understand the purpose of the author's writing. In Romantic era literature understanding the emotions and thoughts that are created in the reader's mind are essential to gaining a clear message that the writer is trying to send. In Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “The Masque of the Red Death” the narrator immediately introduces the “Red Death”; a disease that has been spreading throughout Prince Prospero’s country; killing his people within half an hour of contracting the disease. Throughout the story the author continuously uses diction and syntax to create suspense and evoke a grim tone to the reader. In the “Masque of The Red Death” Poe produces fearful imagery in the reader's mind through creating a supernatural presence in the setting.
Prince Prospero dies in it and his corpse is all black standing in the final room. This proves that the rooms show the stages of life; once someone gets the room, it's death upon the person. Poe uses Prince Prospero to represent that wealth can not protect people from death. Prince Prospero appears when Poe illustrates him and describes him at the beginning of the story. Poe describes him, as “Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless” (Poe 82).
In the story "The Masque of the Red Death" the protagonist Prince Prospero invites one thousand of his closes friends into his castle to hide away from the red death. He welds his castle gates, literally shutting himself out from the outside world. Hoping to escape the gruesome plague that's already taken out half the country. After about 5 months into his stay, Prospero decides to throw a masquerade ball the ball takes place in a suite of seven different rooms. Once the ball has started a mysterious hooded man appears out of nowhere. Nobody recognized him, once Prospero touches the intruder he drops dead. Everybody is silent puzzled on what just happened, once they figure it out its to late. Death has finally got the best of
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
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
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's, "Masque of the Red Death" also has many gothic themes. A bloody disease called the Red Death has ravaged a country. Prince Prospero thinks he can hide from this plague and throws a ball to celebrate his victory over it. First, Poe uses several words in this play conveying horror such as fatal, bleeding, blood, redness, and chambers, which are all clue to death.
The party in the Masque of the Red Death can be seen as a result of Prince Prospero’s fear of premature death since his group is locked away in a fantastically decorated abbey, hiding from the disease festering around them in comfort and security (Poe 319). To be sure, the Prince has good reason to hide, the plague results in agonizing death for all who contract it (Poe 319). More likely is that Prospero’s motives for his actions have nothing to do with fear of death, and the disease outside the abbey is just a reason for the Prince to have a party. After all, he does not sound like someone in fear of death, premature or otherwise; his mood is described as “happy and dauntless and sagacious” (Poe 319), not at all fearful. Upon meeting the Red
When speaking of the Red Death, it is said, “He had come like a thief in the night.” Describing the Red Death's arrival as “like a thief in the night” allows readers to infer how quickly he came, stole something of importance - the life of men, in this case - , and left. Near the beginning, the passage illustrates the signs of the Red Death's Presence. “The scarlet stains...were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men.” The scarlet stains, blood, could not literally shut away men to keep them from health, but their appearance disturbed and frightened others, leading to the victim being left to a cruel, lonely death. Later on, a significant part of the story is explained when the story tells, “It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.” This chilling short story truly portrays Poe’s main themes incredibly
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.