The Importance Of Setting In The Masque Of The Red Death

How can one tell an effective story without first using setting to its fullest extent? Without the proper use of setting, readers cannot experience a piece of literature to its potential. The setting in literature has always been essential in the writing of stories to allow readers to be emerged in the world of the story. An author who has excelled in his use of setting in his writing was Edgar Allan Poe. With years of experience in expertly crafting settings in his works, Edgar Allan Poe has been known for being one of the very best at using setting efficiently in his writing. Throughout his works, Poe used his unique skill with setting to further the effect of his stories for his readers. Poe used setting to bring the readers deeper within …show more content…
In particular, Poe’s setting in “The Masque of the Red Death” of the seven apartments was a technique that showed the contrast of the ignorant joy that was exhibited by the characters in the story to death that surrounded them. Each apartment in “The Masque of the Red Death” have their own unique color with the order of the colors being blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and black. All of these rooms symbolize different aspects of life such as the first room being the color blue and representing the birth of life, whereas the last room is the color black and embodies death itself. While the first six rooms all have rather uplifting colors, the last room with the décor being black and scarlet red with the ticking clock serves a greater purpose to add the effect on the readers while also adding suspense and tension to the story. “The Masque of the Red Death” made readers able to get the eerie sense of Death’s always looming presence in even the grand party taking place during the story. Poe’s use of setting was vital in “The Masque of the Red Death” for the effects that setting leaves on the