Masque Of The Red Death

The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe follows numerous traditions of Gothic fiction and can be analyzed as an allegory demonstrating the inevitability of death. Prince Prospero is the main character of this short story and seeks a solution to the plague of the Red Death that is consuming his people at a rapid pace. In a hurry to escape the disease, he brings along those who have not been infected and settles in a castellated abbey. For fear of any form of disease to enter the castle, he orders the only doors welded shut and designs seven rooms of his suite to be mono-colored with every hue beginning with white and ending with black. All Is well with Prospero and his followers, until an uninvited guest arrives to reveal the fate of those attempting to cheat death.

The setting of this story is inside Prince Prospero’s secluded castle. As everyone in the castle was feeling hopeless, Prospero decided to throw a masquerade ball where his guests could appreciate his elaborate suite. The mono-colored rooms have been interpreted as a metaphor for the stages of life, white room being birth, and the black room as death. Other sources claim that the rooms reveal the insanity of Prince Prospero, which seems likely as he is very paranoid. The setting of “The Masque of the Red Death” inflicts fear in the reader through isolation and …show more content…
The outraged guests discover that the man in the seemingly ironic costume who murdered their Prince is actually the Red Death. “The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe follows numerous traditions of Gothic fiction and can be analyzed as an allegory demonstrating the inevitability of death. “And darkness and decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all” This is another metaphor in the concluding sentence that exemplifies the inevitability of death. The Red Death put an end to the ball with