Symbolism In Masque Of The Red Death

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In “Masque of the Red Death” Prince Prospero is running a country that is undergoing an epidemic of the Red Death and instead of protecting his people, the prince secludes himself in his castle with other high ranking members of society. He eventually faces the red death figure at his masquerade party and ultimately falls into death’s hands. Poe makes the party a masquerade, to symbolize that the Prince and his guests are hiding things, more specifically from themselves. The symbolism of the masquerade also serves as an important setting as it is where the conflict with the red death figure happened. The red death’s appearance justifies itself in showing up at the party as “the mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resembles …show more content…

When confronted with the red death “the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized upon all” (Poe 116). Feeling shame, the prince realizes that he could not escape from death no matter what he did. People in rage tend to do things hurriedly and for Prospero this triggers a flight or fight reaction. Before he would flight as he ran away from the red death by hiding in his castle but now he decided to fight it instead, therefore the conflict in Prospero gets resolved once he made a decision. It was only after the Prince’s death did the guests fight the figure as well “Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revelers at once threw themselves into the black apartment ,” (Poe 116) and ended up dying as well. Unanimously they all joined at once to kill the red death and it shows that the revelers having a conflict with the red death as they only go after the Prince is dead because of how afraid they were before. This was the last straw before the guests finally realized the truth about , and it also initiates a fight or flight reaction like Prospero and they decide to fight which ends with their

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