What Is The Irony In The Masque Of The Red Death

The Masque of the Red Death" is in essence a story about the human desire to avoid death and the ultimate futility of such avoidance. Prince Prospero's name recalls both the term for wealth and the Shakespearean magician of "The Tempest" whose duchy was usurped, and he uses his wealth to give up his rule over his land and to flee death by shutting himself away with a thousand of his noblemen. Thus Poe shows him almost immediately to be fatally flawed, as he remains happy and carefree despite the decimation of his kingdom, showing a fundamental disconnect between his emotions and the needs of his people. His happiness does not result from innocence so much as a desperate fear of sadness and death, and the apparent sinfulness of his actions is ironically underlined as he shuts himself into a religious abbey, which Prospero has protected with iron in the hopes of keeping away the consequences of his wrongdoings.

We can easily view the Prince's masquerade ball as an allegory for the inevitable procession of life into death. Prospero's …show more content…
A masque is a costume ball such as that in which the events of the tale take place. However, the fact that the Red Death appears masked in the seventh room is of special significance beyond the fact that he is attending a masquerade. The mask shows the image of a corpse that has recently been stricken by the plague, but provides no hint of what lies under the mask. The fear of the unknown is a common theme in many of Poe's works, and the story suggests that humanity's ignorance of the nature of death is a major contributor to its fear. In the case of the reveling courtiers, their ignorance results as much from their disconnect with the common people who have suffered from the Red Death as it does from the lack of human knowledge concerning death. The masque is both a response to their fear and ignorance as well as the cause of their