Conflict in The Masque of the Red Death

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Recommended: Traduction edgar allan poe the masque of the red death

Conflicts affect the mood of the main characters in a story, by expressing the insecurities, Death,” a couple of conflicts are exposed throughout the piece. In the story “The Masque of the Red,” a couple of conflicts are expressed throughout this piece. The conflicts man versus fate and man versus himself are the conflicts that are displayed several times within this story. From major conflicts to minor conflicts, this story clarifies the problems that Prince Prospero faces within himself. In addition to Prince Prospero’s problems with himself, this story also explains the conflict of how death is uncontrollable.

The overall conflict of the story “The Masque of the Red Death,” has to do with how death comes without warning. A major conflict is shown by the ebony clock in the story, which is a symbol for death in this story. The ebony clock also symbolizes that death has no given time or hour, and can happen instantly, which is the theme of this story. An example of this would be when death came in and killed Prince Prospero all of a sudden, with no hint to him of what was going to happen. In this short story the author states, “… whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in the unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and the corpse- like mask, which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.” This quote from out of the story was used to show how death came in, and out without any warning killed Prince Prospero. Death is the major conflict of this story. As presented in the quote above, death is something that cannot be stopped no matter who the person. Another quote that displays the conflict of man versus fa...

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... overall conflict of this story, and displays how the ebony clock is the symbol for death. In all, conflict is important to the story, as it ties back to the themes and describes the problems occurred.

Work Cited

Graham, Kenneth. “Criticism by Kenneth Graham.” Discovering Authors. Online ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resource Center- Gold. Web. 12 Jan. 2010.

“The Masque of the Red Death.” Short Stories for Students. Ed. Ira Milne. Vol. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2000. 232-260. Short Stories for Students. Web. 12 Jan. 2010.

Miline, Ira Mark. Short Stories for Student. Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Short Stories Volume 8Virtual Reference Library. Detroit, Mich: Gale. Web. 13 Jan. 2010.

Thompson Gale, 2000. 232-260. Short Stories for Students. Web. 12 Jan. 2010. Poe

Edgar Allan Poe. “The Masque of the Red Death.”

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