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An essay about the theme of the masque of the red death
The masque of the red death conclusion
The masque of the red death conclusion
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In the novel, The Masque of Red Death, by Edgar allen poe, many visible elements are used to deliver the theme that no human can escape death. Nor the rich or the poor , can prevent such thing. This story is about a country that gets infected with a deadly plague known as the "read death", poe himself experienced how the disease affected people in his life.I believe he used this story to demonstrate his views and feelings towards this fatal disease.The plague causes death within 30 minutes of being infected . In the story , there lived a prince named Prince prospero, with little compassion , that takes refuge in a magnificent palace with his 1000 friends along his knights and dames of his court, where they spend their days partying and drinking as if blinded to what is going on in their country.There were dancers, musicians,bufoons, even wine. The perfect place for majesty.The palace had gates of iron and every door was bolted in. The prince has no care to the people, who are dying , bleeding from pores, living their last days. Instead if the prince even suspected one of them was infected, he automatically would kill them. The prince was a selfish, uncaring, self centered rich ruler who thought his power and money could avoid death. The palace is made up of 7 rooms, all of a different color. There is a blue,purple,green,orange,violet, white and lastly a black one covered with blood. Allegorical elements can be decribed as life or death in this mysterious story. The plague symbolized the death part, and the ball symbolized life. I believe the colors represented the stages of the prince life, legitemanly fnishing in the 7th room where he layed lifeless. The rooms go from east to west , representing the way the sun rises meaning bi... ... middle of paper ... ... color red to represent the plague with the fact that the red death is symptomatic of bleeding from the pores. When the prince is going to face the death he shows cowardice which makes him rage with anger."that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice." Time is essential in this story, reminds the people of when time is running out and death is unavoidable. Masque of red death is a gothic literature, with dead, unexplainable mysterious frimes.While him and his guest were safe, his people were dying miserably, it shows a lack of character in his part. Instead of seeing the prince as a cold heartless man, you can also see it as just a scared man not wanting to face reality, leading to creating a imaginary world. When poe bring together both worlds at the end of the story, the poor and the rich, it creates a immediate climax.
All people wish to avoid suffering, and those with wealth usually take too long to realize that they cannot avert it. In the short story, “The Masque of the Red Death”, Edgar Allan Poe tells the readers of death, and how the upper class deals with it. In this story, Prince Prospero and his wealthy friends hide away in a castle to evade death. This obviously does not work, as death is inevitable, but of course, they attempt to save themselves anyways. In “The Masque of the Red Death”, Poe uses the courtiers, Prince Prospero, and the stranger to symbolize the members of the influential upper class and their habit of using their power to postpone their own impending doom.
The Masque of the Red Death was very serious from the beginning to end. The story never pulled away from the sense of a looming threat. Poe did not waste anytime, he cut straight to the point and set the tone right away. The tone relates to people language and the specific words that he uses to create illusion and imagery. Poe uses different times of words to define his language which is called Old English today. Poe sentences are also short and they are practically identical in the simple structure. Poe is a very different writer than most writers today, he has a unique way about his language.
Firstly, The Masque of the Red Death is a short story that dwells on a wide variety of societal issues. On the other hand, The Raven adopts the form of a poem, which is especially notable for its dramatic and melodic properties. The poet uses the refrain of “Lenore” and “nevermore” in order to emphasize the narrators’ troubled interaction with death (Poe, The Works of Edgar Allen Poe). Furthermore, The Raven employs allusion in its attempt to explain the mysteries surrounding death. The poet seeks to know whether there is “balm in Gilead” in reference to the hope of life after death demonstrated in various religious faiths such as Christianity. In The Masque of the Red Death the author addresses death’s inevitability and its wider implication on the society (Poe). The short story addresses the ability of epidemics to wreck havoc on populations. Furthermore, the short story addresses the authority’s selfishness and incompetence when it comes to addressing pivotal issues affecting people. Instead of finding ways of protecting people from further infections, the prince selfishly runs away from the rest of the population. Whereas death finally catches up with everybody regardless of one’s social status, the short story plays a pivotal role in highlighting leadership discrepancies that plague many civilized
In “The Masque of the Red Death,” Edgar Allan Poe uses imagery, sensory detail and symbolism not only to build suspense, but also to convey the idea that an individual can not hide or run away from death which becomes closer as time passes on. Throughout the story Poe uses imagery details to create suspense in the story. For example when the author is describing the disease that has taken many lives he describes the unfortunate event as, “ Blood was its Avator and its seal- the redness and the horror of blood. One can understand that in the story the tragic death of someone might occur as tragically as the disease is described. Accordingly, as the story progresses the deep shade of the color red is evident in many areas to represent symbolism.
In the story “The Masque of the Red Death” the title slightly reveals the story. The story is about a fatal disease known as “The Red Death” and Prospero not caring about and dies. Poe writes this story in third person .Prince Prospero knew about the people dying from the disease but he paid it no attention. So one day Prospero decides to throw a masquerade ball. In the ball there are seven rooms. The seven rooms are different colors such as blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and black. While people are in enjoying the ball, midnight strikes and everyone silently fall to their deaths. Prospero see that everyone is dead and becomes frightened. Prospero runs in a rage and The Red Death catches him and Prospero dies.
In the "Masque of the Red Death," the first sentence, "The Red Death had long devastated the country," sets the tone for the whole story. Poe describes the horrors of the disease, stressing the redness of the blood and the scarlet stains. The disease kills so quickly that one can die within thirty minutes of being infected with the disease. To create a frightening effect of the revulsion of this disease, Poe uses words such as "devastated," "fatal," "horror of blood," and "sharp pains and profuse bleeding." In summary, the story relates the prince, trying to be safe and away from the horrible death, invites a thousand friends to be in seclusion in his abbey away from the disease. During a celebration , a masked ball at the abbey - with incredible described rooms and moods - a surprise masked intruder causes death to all.
...Plessis, Eric H. du. “Deliberate Chaos: Poe’s Use of Colors in ‘The Masque of the Red Death’.” Poe Studies/Dark Romanticism 34.1-2 (June-December 2001): p40-42. Literature Resource Center. Web. 8 April 2012.
First, in Poe’s life, his biological mom and his biological dad died of Tuberculosis when he was a kid. Later in his life, his foster mom also died from Tuberculosis. Then he went to live with his aunt and married his cousin virginia. In 1847, his wife Virginia then died of Tuberculosis. In “The Masque of the Red Death”, many people die of the Red Death, likely including people that Prince Prospero knew. This relates to the “The Masque of the Red Death” because both Poe and Prince Prospero knew people that died of a deadly epidemic. In addition, the symptoms of these two diseases are also similar. In “The Masque of the Red Death”, the symptoms of the red death include sharp pains, dizziness, bleeding from the pores, and most common symptom, blood stains on the victim’s bodies. Tuberculosis is also similar in symptoms because coughing a lot and coughing up blood are common symptoms. Therefore, this deadly epidemic affected Poe and his writing which caused him to write a story about an outbreak of a disease. In conclusion, the death of Poe’s wife, his gloomy childhood, and Tuberculosis influenced him to write the stories he
"The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the 'Red Death,'" (209). As Edgar Allen Poe set the scene for his story, he also created an ominous mood and a sense of suspense supported by the setting. He details the fun and amusement inside the prince's abbey, in contrast to the horror and doom outside, and the reader's curiosity is piqued, because such bliss cannot be maintained for long. Throughout the story Poe explicates and changes elaborate environments to build the suspenseful energy and create a strong structure. In "The Masque of the Red Death," setting is employed to organize motives and action, and to focus the reader on the climax. Poe targets the culminating point of his story using rich descriptions of the abbey, the masquerade, and the clock.
The level that the conflict is on plays a big role, bringing together two characters emotions to. Inner and outer conflicts within the Prince, and the Red Death assist in analyzing the theme of death and madness. Prince Prospero’s main conflict is with death itself. The madness of never knowing when death will come for him. The point of view in the story helps the reader to know what a specific character is thinking. Gale states, “Poe carefully chooses his words to paint a picture of unrelieved fear, suspense, and dread.” Poe’s as a special way of writing and using techniques correctly is why this story a is the reason why thousands of people still read it
“The Masque of the Red Death” was written by Edgar Allen Poe in the 19th century. This story was written during the Gothic era. The stories that are written in the Gothic era is usually has to do with death, and lots of people were fascinated by the stories. There are many symbols in “The Masque of the Red Death”, yet I chose three, the first is all the colors of the room, second is the ebony clock and the last is the inside and outside of the abbey.
"Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying." Edgar Allen Poe provides us symbolically with the reaction of man to the pursuance of death that Jean Cocteau described before, in his gothic short story, "The Masque of the Red Death." Prince Prospero symbolizes the optimist who seeks to avoid death. The Masqueraders represent the pessimist-the carefree who seek to forget about death. The Masked Red Death is the ultimate realization and enlightenment of death's power over all-the realist view. Poe's work symbolically demonstrates the attitudes of man through Prince Prospero, the Masqueraders, and the Masked Red Death.
The Masque of the Red Death was written by a well-known author, Edgar Allan Poe. In this passage he writes about the bubonic plaque; a devastating time period of death. Prince Prospero, on the other hand a very happy man secludes himself from the world of disease and death by closing his gates and throwing a huge masquerade ball creating a life of party. In my analysis I will be using the following symbols; the ballroom for life, Prince Prospero as the concept of avoiding death and fire as death.
Theme can vary based on plot as a whole. Poe uses his stylistic word choices to better convey the theme and create a varying theme out of both stories and help to further improve the aesthetic impact on the reader. The two stories’ themes are very similar in the aspect of being dark or twisted in a sense ,but in “The Masque of the Red Death” it is mostly self destruction while in “The Black Cat” it is of guilt and violence to the narrator’s wife and pets. Another aspect the stories’ themes had in common were their connections to fear. In “The Masque of the Red Death”, Prince Prospero was scared of the The Red Death so he tried to hide from it in in his case and in “The Black Cat”, the narrator had the animals in fear of him from the violence alcohol would
This is shown through the story as, just like the rest of the city’s population, the prince dies.” The “hourly chiming of the ebony clock” shatters the fantastic delusion that wealth, social status, and aesthetics present immunity to pestilence.” (Del Guercio), as the prince and his guests are dancing and partying, the ebony clock is ticking and every hour it chimes and reminds everyone that the illusion of being able to evade death will last only so long. Given these points, the moral of “The Masque of the Red Death” is that no matter one’s status, wealth, or even how hard one tries, death is