Imagery In The Masque Of The Red Death

The book Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe, that is a gothic story. This is about a prince hiding from the plague. He closed the gate and party to forget about the plague. He bring his friends because they can be safe and run from the disease. Then later many people died when an uninvited person came to the party. This book shows that you can not escape from fear by hiding in a lock castle and the price is careless..

Edgar Allen Poe is one of the most well-known authors from the dark romantic age. His story “The Masque of the Red Death” is a short fable about Prince Prospero and the Red Death, better known today as the bubonic plague. The prince is a very rapacious man so when he sees that his kingdom is dying, he chooses to save himself and his companions by bringing them to one of his many castles and simply closing the door on the plague. They continued to live their lavish lives, acting as if nothing was wrong behind the sturdy door of the castle. Then, when Prospero throws a big masquerade, he discovers that an intruder has crashed his party. Out of rage, he goes to stab the man, but, upon reaching the doorway of the room, he drops dead. After a mob of very upset partygoers tears apart the grotesque mask of the intruder, they discover that the “man” underneath is a personified version of the Red Death. Through a psychological lens, one would be able to see the different emotions portrayed through the characters. From beginning to end, “The Masque of the Red Death” brings forth a range of emotions through the characters and their uncontrollable and many times thoughtless actions.

“No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous.” (446). The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe is about a devastating plague that is going around a country. Edgar Allan Poe is one of the many gothic literature writers. He loves to write about insanity, murder, and the evil within humans and the human mind.

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.

The Masque of the Red Death is an allegory that is about how if you are put in a position facing death or have an opportunity to save yourself through others, be grateful to the person that was the savior. One of the symbols are the series of the seven rooms. Each room is a different color and each pathway to each room is not aligned. The different colors of the rooms are representing the different sections of your life, which is leading up to your death. Another symbol is the clock in the last, black room. The clock, in the farthest room is representing death. The clock represents the timeline of your death and how long a person has left to live. This frightens the people because when the clock turns on, the scary noise reminds people of

“nobody can escape the ineluctability of death”. I believe the plot structure and characterization create and reinforce this by having Prince Prospero, who tried so hard to escape death, fall to the Red Death. The first point I would like to make is about Prince Prospero, and how he tried so hard to avoid the masked figure of Red Death. My second point is about the masked figure and what it represents. My third point is about how the plot structure really reinforces the theme of the story.

The Masque of The Red Death is an allegory. An allegory is a poem that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning. In The Masque of The Red Death pretty much everything in the story is symbolic. For example the rooms, the clock, the prince, and the masked intruder are all important symbols. The Rooms are all very symbolic because they each represent a stage of life beginning with birth and ending at death.

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.

The “Masque of the Red Death” is a short tale of symbolism and allegory. Allegories can help the readers understand concepts that might be too difficult to comprehend otherwise. Everything from the set up of the rooms in the abbey to Prince Prospero's name has an underlying meaning. Poe’s uses of both positive and negative symbols to highlight the fact that no one can hide from death.

“Frail humanity can never escape the ravages of time”. Humans are born and will eventually die; it’s the cycle of life. No one can prevent death, but it does not stop people from trying to prolong life. Fate is inevitably predetermined; death is our predetermined fate. In the allegory “The Masque of the Red Death”, written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1842, Poe teaches that death is predestined and that you cannot avoid fate. Poe focuses in on an unusual character, Prince Prospero, who displays strange characteristics in a time of woe. In “The Masque of the Red Death,” Poe uses Prospero’s urge for power, struggle for power, and failure to get power, to enhance the theme of fate being ineludible.

In Aesop’s fable, “The Wolf and the Lamb,” the moral of the story asks the reader to examine the desire for an object—and how we justify our behavior if we cannot obtain that object. This moral is graphically presented through the repeated use of key words to describe the fox’s repeated failure to get what he wants. The fox’s first attempt is foiled as he “just missed” the grapes (35). He attempts “again and again”, running and jumping repeatedly, but has “no greater success” (35). He then becomes disgusted and walks away. These successive descriptions of his failure build to his disdainful comment that the grapes are probably sour (35). The repeated demonstration of fox’s failures and his self-rationalization of why is he walking away—not

In reality everyone is born to die, but for some it’s sooner than later. Nobody in the world can stop or hide from it. Dying is one of the things that no wealthy or poor man can get away from. A rich person does not have enough money in the world to buy more time of living. Death does not just happen to the less fortunate it happens to everyone; it is thing everyone has in common. Most of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories are revolved around death and have a message behind the madness. The hidden messages in Poe’s allegory “ The Masque of the Red Death” is as you get older your world becomes darker and darker over time.

“The Masque of the Red Death” Throughout the poem “The Masque of the Red Death” Edgar Allan Poe uses various sentence structure to draw in the reader through emotion. Poe selects his word choice very carefully. He uses words that are not too big but they still give a very deep meaning. Literary devices are just as important to the poem. These devices help readers convey the theme of this poem, which is no matter how wealthy or powerful one is, one can never escape death.

To begin I would like to state that this is the first time I have had the experience of reading Poe and as such the reading process was greatly intriguing. The short story I chose was the Masque of the Red Death, which I found to be very dark and vile. From the beginning of the story to the end I found great concentration on the issues of life and death, among other things, which made the story very dynamic for its size. Another point of interest I found in the story was Poe’s concentration on historical accuracy as he successfully attempts to illustrate the feudal system at its best. However, two aspects of Poe’s writing that I did not exactly enjoy was the use of obscure words and seemingly long sentence which can some times take away

“The Masque of the Red Death” is a remarkable story of many elements that can take in any reader. This story uses gothic elements to prove the inevitability of death. The point of view Edgar Allan Poe wrote this in makes a clear understanding that death conquers all.