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Avoiding Reality: “The Masque of the Red Death” Analysis

Satisfactory Essays

Brandon DeLeon
McCloud
English 2H
November 4, 2013
Avoiding Reality: “The Masque of the Red Death” Analysis
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 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 …show more content…

And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away- they have endured but an instant- and a light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart” (424). The clock creates the idea of fear and shows the time for sanity running out. Once the clock strikes midnight Prospero’s psychological battle for survival is lost, resulting in the end of his life. The doors symbolism of stages of life demonstrates the downfall of the Prince. Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Masque of Red Death” about a wealthy, mercenary Prince’s denial of reality parallels to the modern world we live in today. Society offers humans many ways to escape or hide from reality, allowing a person to view the world from the perspective they want to view it from. While there are natural ways to cope with reality such as listening to music, or getting lost in a novel, human’s tend to overuse the unnatural and rather deadly coping mechanisms such as drugs and alcohol, for they create a chemically altered state of mind. The story, “The Masque of Red Death” is about the psychological struggle of facing reality and the use of the mind to allow a person to feel exempt from it. Poe’s conveys the overall message of using distractions to hide from an inescapable reality can later cause the desolation of the

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