What Does The Last Room Symbolize In The Masque Of The Red Death

The short story The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe is a very significant story with a deeper message than what appears. The story consist of a lot of symbolism such as the colors of the rooms, the red death itself, and the clock that is in the last room. Each one of those symbols give the story a deeper meaning and plays a significant role in the story. The seven colors of the rooms in The Masque of the Red Death is the least noticed use of symbolism in the story. The colors of each of the chambers represent the different phases of life. The rooms are ordered from east to west just as the sun rises in the east and sets in west which represents the birth and the death. The colors represent “ a life cycle: blue in the first chamber indicating birth and life, …show more content…
The clock, that is located in the very last room, the black room that represents death and the end of the circle of life, does very well at representing the time life until the people inside the palace die. Every hour the clock chimed loud causing everyone and everything to stop, “ the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to the heartbroken sound.” (Poe 2) The people of the palace knew that with each chime that time was running out they just did not know it would be as soon as it was. It is also mentioned that the once everyone had caught the plague and died the red death stood in the shadow of the clock because time was up and everybody was dead because of the red death. The clock overall serves as a very good symbol of “passing of time and inevitability of death” (Mucha) because they cannot escape it and the chimes of the clock were a constant reminder that death was