The Masque of the Red Death

In "The Masque Of The Red Death", Edgar Allan Poe uses words and phrases to create an effect. He uses bold and dark words to help his readers be able to picture a very good image of the story and the mood that he wants to set. When he claiming that, "no pestilence had ever been so fatal ", that let the readers know that is was probably a very strong and gruesome disease that killed many of the town people. When Poe starts the story he starts by describing "The Red Death" and its symptoms. He described it as, "sharp pains, sudden dizziness, profuse bleeding at the pores with dissolution", "seizure process and termination of the disease were the incident of half and hour", he lists the symptoms as if it were a recipe, he is very straightforward and uses words that give an image to every symptom, he completely lets the reads know that "the red death" was a very nasty painful disease and you could imagine how much it made the characters suffer all in half

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 both “Masque of the Red Death” and “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe, the author uses specific elements to express meaning and to develop a theme. He is portraying the idea that neither love nor death has a limit, no matter what we want to imagine. We have no control of either, especially death. In “The Masque of The Red Death” Poe makes the inference that death is inevitable or inescapable. In “Annabel Lee” he uses the power of two character’s love to show that death is not preventable no matter what you do. Also, he shows that love never vanishes even after death. In both selections, Poe uses rhetorical devices such as parallelism, symbolism, and imagery to draw the reader into the story.

The Masque of the Red Death, by Edgar Allen Poe, is a story of death and how it is impossible to escape. Though the book and the 1964 movie were very different, they did portray the same message. In both, story and movie, Prince Prospero throws a masquerade ball for all of his high class friends, to let all the others die out, and wait out the Red Death. Though it always ends the same way, death.

The overall conflict of the story “The Masque of the Red Death,” has to do with how 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.

“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.

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

“The Masque of Red Death” is considered an allegory because it is made of many different symbols, from the clock to the colors of the seven rooms. All of the forms of symbolism come together to make the short story. The allegorical meaning of “Red Death” is in fact, death. Even though there was a castle and a dagger to protect the Prince from the inevitable, he still died in the end with the rest of the characters. The allegorical meaning behind the colors of the seven rooms, are the stages of life. From blue being birth to black being the end, death, Poe illustrates to his readers that the castle is setup to include death even though that is something that is not necessarily wanted by Prince

“The Masque of the Red Death” has a symbolic expression to the story. It featured a set of familiar symbols whose meanings combined to send a message. This allegory operated on two levels of meaning: 1) the literal elements of the plot; for example the color of the room and 2) their symbolic counterparts that involved philosophical concepts for example life and death. The story could have been read by the reader as an allegory

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.

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,

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

As a gothic writer, Edgar Allan Poe created horror using gloom as his weapon. Hidden within the suspenseful story of “The Masque of Red Death” is an allegorical tale of how individuals deal with the fear of death as time passes. Frantic activities and pleasures (as represented by Prince Prospero and his guests) seek to wall out the threat of death. However, the story reminds the reader that death comes “like a thief in the night”(Poe 3), and even those who seek peace and safety shall not escape. Poe uses symbolism to illustrate that man cannot hide from his own mortality.