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

In Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven” and short story “The Masque of The Red Death” Poe illustrates a fear of death. Death has taken away the people he cares about most in his life. As an author of fear and death, Poe's own life was the inspiration for his spine tingling poems and stories. In his poem “The Raven” Virginia was the influence for Lenore, whose death the speaker is grieving. In Poe’s short story “The Masque of the Red Death,” the red death is a representation of tuberculosis which his wife as well as his mother, foster mother, and brother all obtained and die from.

Imagine dancing through the colorful stages of life, birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and such. However, as you progress through life, you can never shake a sense of foreboding lurking behind you. Suddenly, deep, dark, death devours you. Death, everyone faces it eventually. In the story, “The Masque of the Red Death”, by Edgar Allan Poe, the theme is, “You cannot avoid death.” Poe develops the theme by using many different symbols throughout the story.

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

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.

Death is something that will happen to everyone eventually. Death is not a thing that can be easily shaked off as if it were nothing. Some people fear death, others wait for it, and some don’t give a care in the world, being too busy enjoying life. Death is something that can happen either peacefully or painfully. Death relates to the hidden message in Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death” by trying to give the meaning that no matter who the person is and what the person tries to do, no one is capable of being able to escape death.

inevitability of death and the futility of trying to escape death. The prince's name, Prospero,

Poe lost his loved ones which made him very depressed. Poe lost his mother when he was very young and his father left him when he was 1 year old. His mother died from the horrible disease tuberculosis. Poe then got a new home with the Allen family a caring family sometimes. Poe’s step mother loved him, but his father did not like him so much as he was very mean to Edgar. Poe’s stepmother sadly died just like his biological mother. Edgar Poe finally moved in with family, his cousin Virginia and aunt to be precise. He fell in love with Virginia and married her he loved her so much, but the time he had her wasn't enough. Virginia died of the same exact

Michael Ruiz once said, “Everyone dies. There’s no point in fighting it.” In Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe, there is a disease that kills almost everyone in a country so the king brings all survivors into a castle to prevent it from killing anyone else, although it still ends up getting in from a ghost, and wipes everyone else out. In Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe, Poe uses gothic elements such as a gloom setting, supernatural beings, curses, and air of mystery and suspense.

And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all (461).” All people in Poe’s story die, and in reality every human being meets with death and decay. The wealthy had suffered the same fate as the poor, even though they had many more possessions and a greater social status than the peasants. Poe goes to symbolize the Red Death as an appointment and a fate that eventually all people in the world must come to face. For some people, such as the ones in “The Masque of the Red Death”, choose to indulge themselves in pleasure, helplessly awaiting the fate that has been set for them from the day of

As life progresses people come to the understanding that nothing in life is promised except death. It is inevitable, and it happens in many different ways. Every death is accompanied with an interesting story behind it. In the three works, “The Masque of the Red Death”, “Annabel Lee” and “The Fall of the House of Usher” all written by Poe, death is a big picture in all of his works and the fear of death is something witnessed a lot in his works. In, “The Masque of the Red Death”, Prince Prospero, who is a selfish leader, locks himself and other friends out of harm's way of the Red Death. He later throws a party and ironically the Red Death finds its way there. Annabel Lee on the other hand, is a wife, who was madly in love. Annabel was taken

In the short story Masque of the Red Death Edgar Allen Poe establishes the effect of terror in many ways. A mixture of the setting, characters, and language make for a chilling tale. The short prologue Poe entices us with begins to set the scene. It explains the “red death” which is sweeping the land and illustrates how this foreboding disease ravishes its victims.

Because inevitability of time and death seems to be the recurring theme, the most likely significance behind the number of apartments would be the seven stages of life. The first apartment is said to be placed most eastwardly and is blue in décor, which could signify the rising of the sun, the beginning of life, and the color of day. And the seventh, and most westerly apartment, is black with red accents and represents the end of life, the setting of the sun, and death. Poe did not intend a specific meaning for the number seven, just for the reader to be aware of the passing of time and the idea that the prince was trying to recreate a perfect world complete with "…all the appliances of pleasure…Without was the Red Death." (238). The Prince's recreation of the world is ironic because it is modeled after the one the Prince and his followers are trying to escape. The seven perfect rooms foreshadow the evitable downfall of perfection. The number seven appears six times in the text which may lead to some significance behind that number as well.

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

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.

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