Allegory In The Masque Of The Red Death

Through life one must learn that not everything comes easy. Life is not something to toy with. Poe shows this in his short story The Masque of the Red Death. Prince Prospero believes with all his power and money he can avoid reality and even death itself, although Poe shows the reader otherwise. In The Masque of the Red Death, to bolster his allegory of life, Poe shows how nothing determines who someone is in the eyes of death, and how it always comes through Prince Prospero, the castle, the clock and the stranger. Even people with the most power and wealth can not avoid the inevitable. Prince Prospero thought he could locking himself in his castle away from the red death. Poe writes “with these [Prince Prospero] retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys” (Poe 82). Prince Prospero, a wealthy, powerful, and prosperous man tried to avoid the problems of his people. In doing this he, in turn, doomed himself. Instead of aiding he was selfish and tried to escape all the chaos and death itself. But, as Poe tells the reader, no one escapes death. Poe writes “There was a

Prince Prospero tried doing so inside the depths of his castle. Though obviously this did not work out. Poe states, “The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts [of the iron gates]. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress or egress,” (Poe 83). He had his friends bring in all these heavy metal items, and massive hammers to seal themselves off from the rest of the world. They hid in Prospero’s “strong and lofty wall” guarded by “gates of iron” (Poe 82-83). As the reader finds out, it is not as strong as they hoped. The castle acted as a barrier that people put up, and the measures people take to avoid what they despise or do not want. The people who do this do not always think of the consequences of their actions. Because it is pointless to avoid the