Symbolism In The Masque Of The Red Death

The fires in each of the suite rooms serve as a representation of death. Poe depicts

Edgar Allan Poe’s use of symbolism in “The Masque of the Red Death” creates a

Poe used the rooms of the fortress as a symbol of the progression of a human life. The fortresses design contains seven distinctly different rooms. H.H. Bell, Jr., an expert on Edgar Allan Poe, has suggested that Poe seems to represent these rooms as an “allegorical representation of Prince Prospero’s life span” (Bell 241). The greatest piece of evidence for this is the order in which Poe arranged the rooms. The first room is positioned in the far eastern side of the mansion and the last room’s placement resides in the far western side. Just as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west each day, the arrangement of the rooms suggests the beginning and the end of life. Poe exemplifies this idea with the coloration of the last room. Black, a color connected with night and death, covers the walls in the last room. Also, the color of red seeps through the stained glass windows representing the bloodiness often incorporated with death, particularly the Red Death so feared at this party. Prospero’s guests avoid the last room out of fear, just as the living avoid reminders of death. Meanwhile, music and dancing

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.

In the story there are seven rooms. The last room symbolises the last stage of life, death. In the story it says “The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations .The panes here were scarlet a deep blood color” (Poe).

By using different colors and directional location for symbolism, Poe reinforces this theme. For example, our notes directly state that the Seven Colored Rooms are arranged from east to west. These directional locations propose that the furthest to the east room represents birth and beginnings, then as you make your way through the other rooms, (the other stages of life), you finish in the western most room which

Through using the deathly symbolism in this story skillfully, Poe allude to people to the part of life that people have to go through without the controled by people . First he described seven chambers ( seven rooms in the palace ), “In blue…….. falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue” ( Poe 43) . Seven room were represent to 7 part of life : the blue room, which is farthest to the east, represents birth.. The next room is purple, a combination of blue (birth) and red suggests the beginnings of growth. Green, the next color, suggests the young of life the age of spring , orange is the summer and autumn of life is the age of adult . White, the next color, suggests age with white hair, and bones the age of old . Violet is a shadowy color, the color represents people were near the death . And black is death. Otherwise, 7 rooms were set up East to West like the position of the Sun. That means that no matter who you are you

“And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.” This quote from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque Of The Red Death”connects the fictional fate of Prince Prospero and his subjects to the . . Red Death to the many loved ones Poe’s life is very similar to those in thelost to tuberculosis in the late 1800s. Poe uses personification and allegories to show emphasize the presence of death that theand fear and presence of death is evident present in his work. Poe uses personification and gory phrases to show bring to the forefront the fear of death that possesses everyone clutches .

“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.

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.

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

Edgar Allan Poe is a famous well known writer known for his dark and gothic horror stories such as “The Tell-Tale Heart” and many others. The well-known author had a rough life which dealt with a lot of death, so most of his stories revolve around this idea. In “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Masque of the Red Death” Poe uses similar themes or darkness to convey tone and conflict throughout the story. His writing style is dark and revolves around one main concept: death. Edgar Allan Poe uses diction and syntax, setting and conflict, and characterization in his writing style to develop his stories.

Death is an important theme in Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories, “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “The Masque of the Red Death”.

Each apartment in the abbey is a symbol that supports the theme. The apartments are in order, starting with blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and black. Starting with the blue apartment, blue symbolizes birth or the start of someone’s life. Next, the purple apartment represents growth in someone’s life through

But we will never know the real reason. It could be because of William Shakespeare’s “Seven Ages of Men”, or Christianity’s seven deadly sins. There are more speculations, but my personal perception would be one of these two. Although Poe was not very religious in his later years, he went to church a lot when he was a child which could have influenced his stories. The vivid colors used in each room would lead me to assume that the rooms actually represent the stages of life. On the most eastern side (where the sun rises) would be infant, then the colors in-between would be your years after infancy, then lastly on the furthest western side (where the sun sets) would be death since the room is black.