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A'mari Bingham
Mr. Darin Thompson
English 1301.27
December,3,2016
The Masque of The Red Death Research Essay
Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all., quoted
from the short story, The Masque of the Red Death. The famous short story is wickedly
thought provoking. The author, Edgar Allan Poe published The Masque of the Red Death in
1842.The genre is gothic literary fiction. This short story is characterized as gothic because of its
intense atmosphere of horror. In the short story, The Masque of the Red Death, there is a
plague, which begins to rapidly kill off half of the population. Prince Prospero gathered a
thousand knights/friends and isolated themselves in a castle surrounded by an iron wall, with
seven rooms. Each room had diverse colors, but the seventh room was dark and had blood
stained colored panels. Few were bold enough to walk in. Throughout the story, Prospero
continues to ignore the plague. Until one day there is an uninvited guest, Prospero ends up facing
him and falls to his death in the seventh room. There is a theme that death is inevitable, no matter
how hard you try not to face it, your mask will always be revealed. Throughout the story, Poe
uses symbolization such as the colors of the rooms, the uninvited guest, and the clock to create a
theme: death is inevitable.
There is a sense of allegory in this story with how the rooms are set up. With the first
room being blue and to the east symbolizing birth and beginning. Showing different stages of
life. The velvet room to the west represents the end, death. The colors of the room such as red

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symbolizing blood and black symbolize decay and death. As stated by Shoomp University
website, The Red Death walks from the blue room to the black room it walks the course of
life, leading from birth to death. Prospero follows that course when he chases it: he runs from the
blue room to the black room, where he dies. Also, to support this claim, Patricia Wheatleys
Academic Journal stated, His seven room have been often compared to the seven stages of
mans life.
The uninvited guest symbolized death, obviously, the masked character has the plague
when the prince and all his followers submit to death. The uninvited guest was described as tall
and boney, in my opinion, characteristics of the grim reaper. He had come like a thief in the
night. And one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died
each in the despairing posture of his fall. quoted from the story. Poe calls Death he because
Poe has personified Death into the narrator. The unnamed narrator in this sinister tale of terror
can, arguably, be denoted as the omnipresence of death. stated in The Antithesis Of The
Beautiful Death Academic Journal. Poe develops a character to depict the briefness of life and
the certainty of Death. The antagonist, the uninvited guest, has a mask of death. The mask
which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened
corpse. quoted from the story. When the prince stands up to the masked spirit in the seventh
room and embraces Death, he dies instantly. The princes pride was his protective mask against
death if death remained masked it was not a reality to the prince. This supports the theme: death
is inevitable, no matter how hard you try not to face it, your mask will always be revealed.
In the short story, The Masque of the Red Death there is an ebony clock in the seventh
room. This clock symbolizes how time goes by. Every day at the lapse of an hour, the musicians
of the orchestra were forced to pause, momentarily, in their performance to listen. The clock is

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the reminder of death, the enemy, and time, his companion. stated by the Mask of Indifference
Academic Journal.
In Summary, The Masque of the Red Death has many literary devices such as
symbolism, allegory, imagery, hyperbole, and personification that created a mood of horror. Poe
used the colors of the rooms, the uninvited guest, and the clock as symbols to create the
unambiguous theme of deaths inevitability. Even my beginning quote has an allegory, the
narrator of this short story wasnt human because he wouldve died off with the story. The
narrator was Death himself. Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion
over all.

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Work Cited
Delli Santi, Lauren Lynn. "Prince Prospero: The Antithesis Of The Beautiful Death." Anq 25.2
(2012): 98-102. Literary Reference Center. Web. 7 Dec. 2016.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "The Seven Colored Rooms in The Masque of the Red Death." Shmoop.
Shmoop University, 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 04 Dec. 2016.
Wheat, Patricia H. "The Mask Of Indifference In 'The Masque Of The Red Death'." Studies In
Short Fiction 19.1 (1982): 51. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 Dec. 2016.