Time Takes Its Toll on All in Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe Edgar Allen Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" takes place in seven connected but carefully separated rooms. The significance of the number seven is apparent throughout our society. The bible chronicles the creation of the world in seven days, there are seven wonders of the world, colleges and universities divide learning into seven subjects and an individuals life is thought to have seven stages. Seven also symbolizes fear and doom as in the seven signs of the apocalypse. Therefore, the seven rooms represent a person's life from pure beginning to its impending death. Poe's selected the layout of the rooms for specific symbolic purposes. The layout from the first to the last room is from east to west. East to west, the direction of the rising and setting sun, signifies that everything has a beginning and end. The rooms are also strategically laid out so that you cannot see one room to the next, creating the element of surprise. Poe mirrored the way we know and experience life. One never knows exactly what is ahead of them, but whatever it is, it will always lead one to death and there is no escape. The colors of the rooms range from light to dark. The first room is blue, symbolizing "truth or insight," "spiritual values, wisdom or healing," (Todeshi, 71) giving the reader a feeling of peace and tranquility like a clear blue sky. The rooms go on leading to a deeper and somewhat darker feeling ending with the last or seventh room. This room is mostly black in color symbolizing an association "with negativity, sin, or evil," and representing "depression, illness, or disease." (Todeschi, 71). The seventh room also contains a deep red ... ... middle of paper ... ...oe strove not so much to tell a story as to produce an effect such as that of desolation and despair. Bibliography: Bibliography Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe, A Critical Biography. New York: Appleton-Century Crofts, 1941. Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Masque of the Red Death." Selected Tales, New York: Vintage Books, 1991: 156-162. Smith, C. Alphonso. Edgar Allan Poe, How to Know Him. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1921. Todeschi, Kevin J. The Encyclopedia of Symbolism. Berkley, 1995. Cassuto, Leonard. "The Coy Reaper: Unmasqueing the Red Death." Studies in Short Fiction 25.3 (1998): 317-320. Tritt, Michael. "The Masque of the Red Death." Poe Studies: Dark Romanticism: History, Theory, Interpretation 16:1 (1983): 13-14. Ruddick, Nicholas. "The Hoax of the Red Death: Poe as Allegorist." The Sphinx 4.4 (1985): 268-276.
Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Masque of the Red Death” Literature An Introduction to Reading and Writing. ED. Edgar V Roberts and Robert Zweig. Boston, Longman: 2012. 516-519.
Poe creates seven rooms with each having their own unique color. According to the text, “...the room in which it was held...were seven-an imperial suite” (Poe 4). Poe chooses seven rooms because it symbolizes the seven deadly sins: gluttony,
Literary genius Edgar Allan Poe lived a troubled life. During his forty years of existence, Poe struggled with the deaths of countless family members, including his cousin-wife. These bruising events caused him to develop the mental illness depression. In his short story “Masque of the Red Death,” the views Poe developed during his tumultuous life are reflected in his writing. The theme of this short story emphasizes the inevitability of death in descriptive details because Edgar Allan Poe has encountered death so many times. He also makes social commentary on materialism and the value of life because he was raised in a wealthy household where he received more allowance than love. Poe’s melancholy overtone in this story can also be attributed to the sickness and death he watched his wife succumb to. The depression Edgar Allan Poe developed due to his turbulent and unfortunate life is depicted in his story “Masque of the Red Death” in the way he addresses death and the materialistic nature of human beings.
Each room is a different color, representing a different stage of life. The first room, furthest to the east, is the blue room, representing birth, or the unknown alternate universe before a human enters the world. The next room is combination of blue, and red, the hue equating life. This makes the purple room a suggestion to the very beginning of a young child’s life, innocent and full of vigor. As Poe continues, green is the next color room to symbolize “spring”, or a life of youth. The following room is orange, representative of summer and autumn and the later stages of life in adulthood. The fifth space is white, suggesting old age; white hair or bones that come with inching towards death. The next violet color portrays a dark foreshadowing to the seventh and final room, the black, the room of death
Authors use various styles to tell their stories in order to appeal to the masses exceptionally well and pass the message across. These messages can be communicated through short stories, novels, poems, songs and other forms of literature. Through The Masque of the Red Death and The Raven, it is incredibly easy to get an understanding of Edgar Allen Poe as an author. Both works describe events that are melodramatic, evil and strange. It is also pertinent to appreciate the fact that strange plots and eerie atmospheres are considerably evident in the author’s writings. This paper compares and contrasts The Masque of the Red Death and The Raven and proves that the fear of uncertainty and death informs Edgar Allen Poe’s writings in the two works
In the story there was seven different rooms and the black room containing the only candle light. “Blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, black with scarlet.”These colors all have meanings about the stages of life through the rooms. From blue meaning the beginning and black with scarlet curtains in the ending, which is a representation of death. The room was a black heaven to show the importance of the room. “There was no… suite of life.” (Paragraph 4). The clock had many more reasons. Another was that it represented more than just time. The ebony clock also represented life. The room also expanded into a deeper meaning, the meaning of death. It was the last stage of life. The last room contained red curtains that represented spilled blood or
The “Masque of the Red Death” depicts this attribute very well. When the seven rooms are introduced, some are described as being bright, the final, and most important, room is not. The story states that “the seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries…” (Poe). This is a good use of imagery, allowing the reader to imagine what the seventh room looks like. The final room is meant to resemble death. Gothic settings are not just dark, but include gothic architecture. This short story takes place in Prince Prospero’s palace, which compliments the gothic
In Edgar Allen Poe’s short mystery, “The Masque of the Red Death” the emotions and beliefs from the mid 1800’s are figuratively brought to life through symbolism. Discussing through a fictional perspective about a plague that is referenced as “The Red Death”; the disease potentially was meant to represent Tuberculosis or the Bubonic Plague. Using the seven stages of “life” portrayed through color, Poe illustrates the sense of mystery and the fear of the known. In his short story he displays not only the inevitability of fear through extensive use of remarkable symbolism, but also the different views of that era. During the 1800’s the plague was racing and the medication was not extensive enough to control the diseases, such as; Tuberculosis, Bubonic Plague, even the common cold was lethal. Big cities were not kept as clean as they should’ve been, trash and sewage was not always disposed of properly. Having this in mind, think of how easy it was to become ill. The “red death” is viewed as a mysterious man, never having before been seen in the Prince’s castle; without knowing why, the guests and Prince Prospero begin to fear the unknown man. Though the man shows no sign of harmful intentions, the inevitable fear of the unknown is exposed. Using a thrilling setting to stir the mood, Poe allows the
The horrific theme in Poe’s characters from the “The Premature Burial” and “The Masque of the Red Death” is Death. These two dark romantics stories take a toll on their characters as they are obsessed in their desire to avoid death. These characters in both stories go through great lengths in their own way to avoid the inevitable and inescapable.
Have you ever lost anyone close to you? Poe did. He lost his mom, step mom, and his wife to tuberculosis. These deaths influenced his writings and made them dark. They especially influenced the story Masque of the Red Death directly because the red death even stood for (tb). Three other symbols that were also covered in the story are the ebony clock, the black room, and the jaggedness of the rooms. They connect to show the theme that death rules over us all, no matter what.
The author, Edgar Allan Poe, using illusion or misdirection keeps the reader is suspense throughout this story called "The Masque of the Red Death". Symbolism such as the colored rooms, the impressive clock, the feeling of celebration being at a party all makes this story feel like a fairytale. Poe used this fairytale style and converts it into a nightmare in disguise.
Poe made a detailed description that it was to take place in one of Prince Prospero’s “castellated abbeys” (1), isolated from the rest of the country where the people in it are trapped inside while the people outside can not get in. He wanted his readers to imagine, “A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron” (1). The abbeys sense of confinement is threatening and everyone both inside and out had no capability to escape death from the plague. The sense of humorous irony is at hand as the Prince is bounded in the castle with the Red Death, the reason why he enclosed himself in the castle in the first place.
Poe wants people on their feet. That’s why he uses vivid wording to help the reader picture what is happening in the short story. Poe uses vivid descriptions when describing the rooms around the house,” these windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened...in blue -- and vividly blue were its windows.The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and in here the panes were purple. The third one was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange -- the fifth with white -- the sixth with violet. 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 hu. 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 gives descriptive words so people can picture certain things in their mind like the rooms and how each room is different from one another. Poe does this so people can feel like they are there by making them feel the tension between each word and making them feel like they are actually there at the place during that time. Poe wants people to feel the tension between what's happening with the characters and their
Edgar Allen Poe; the master of darkness. Every student encounters Poe at least once in their life, and they all naively believe that all his writing portrays darkness, death, or some other aspect of evilness. Nevertheless, these students fail to realize that Poe also illustrates some details of positivity and lightness throughout his writing. In his captivating short story, “The Masque of the Red Death,” Poe demonstrates his use of both darkness and illumination. When reading Poe’s short story, it is clear to understand that his use of symbolism is strong, leading to the theme of life and death.
Poe describes the rooms upstairs very fully. He says the rooms are very dark and eerie. He acts as if there is a prescience of death in the rooms upstairs. Notice the prince is upstairs during the whole story. He's trying to hide from death,