The one thing for certain is this is a tale of binary oppositions, death and life. Life is seen in the defiant Prospero and his guests whom attempt to defy death’s wishes. The concepts of life and death are interrelated and connected in all aspects; it is unfeasible to have one exclusive of the other. The connotations behind these binaries are continuously deferring meaning to one another. Without life there is no death, and without death there is no life. The différance is cyclical in this case. Différance is Derrida’s term for the theory that “meaning of any given text will be derived from its interrelatedness with other texts” (Dobie 163). “The Masque of the Red Death” plot is a perfect example of this theory at work. In the act of deferring
