The movie is set around the belief that the devil has taken over the abbey. Adso, the novice to the main character, narrates the story. Monks are dying and there is no explanation for their death. All of the men have been found dead and their index fingers and tongues have been stained with ink. Adso, has come along to help William but finds himself questioning his own beliefs.
Both Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allen Poe are gothic writers who share many similarities in their stories. Both authors write about characters who live in their own and try to escape the real world around them. In Hawthorne’s “Dr. Heidegger’s experiment” four participants attempt to escape reality by drinking from a fountain of youth in order to return to make themselves younger. In Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death”, Prince Prospero tries to escape the red death, a disease that is ravaging his city, by hiding in his own castellated abbey.
Everyone fears their own death, thus why some people will do anything to escape it. In Edgar Allan Poe's short story, “The Masque of the Red Death”, this fear is experienced by all. In the story, a prince named Prospero and his people try to elude the Red Death through seclusion and isolation in the prince's abbey. However, no walls can stop death since it is unavoidable and inescapable. Throughout the story, Poe uses symbols such as the rooms, the masked figure, and the clock to convey the theme that no one can escape death.
Language and Symbolism in The Masque of the Red Death Edgar Allen Poe's The Masque of the Red Death is an elaborate allegory that combines objects in the story with visual descriptions to give focus to the reader's imagination. In the story, a prince named Properso tries to dodge the Red Death through isolation and seclusion. He hides behind impenetrable walls of his castellated abbey and lets the world take care of its own. But no walls can stop death because it is unavoidable and inevitable. Visual descriptions in the story are used to symbolize death.
In Edgar Allen Poe’s story of the “The Masque of the Red Death “, it is narrated by an unknown onlooker within the castle itself. In both stories with the narrator being an onlooker or as an unnamed friend as in “The fall of the House of Usher” forces or draws the reader to feel a part of the story itself. “The Masque of the Red Death” is about a prince who is rich that invites a thousand of his close knights and people of nobility to his castle where he has it sealed up to keep the plague from reaching his guest and his self. Edgar Allan Poe made the rooms of the castle in this story to be bazaar with all seven chambers of the castle different colors that went in one direction from east to west representing a life cycle. The last chamber was colored black with red stained windows that represented the final stage of life or death.
Also, the he fact the Prince Prospero’s name reflects prosperity is ironic because his kingdom is in ruin and he and all his friends die (Caldwell). At the end, the strange, masked guest who kills Prince Prospero is actually death itself. This is Poe using personification to give death a human-like form. Poe uses the seven rooms of the party suite to symbolize the stages of life. The room furthest east represents birth because of the blue, happy color and the sun rises in the east at the start of a new day.
The realities in the story even range all the way to the reality of the the Red Death itself who does not see social classes or status but just goes after anyone for no reasons, but just cause chaos and suffering. The other theme also includes how time ties both of the stories together. In The Tell-Tale Heart the unnamed main character and narrator is completely obsessed with time. For several nights in a row he goes into the old man 's room precisely at the same time and and he does the same exact procedure every single night. He then after the murder he commits hears the heart of the dead man that resembles a ticking clock.
This reminds the reader of the past significance of the number seven. The history of the world was thought to consist of seven ages, just as an individual's life had seven stages. The ancient world had seven wonders; universities divided learning into seven subjects; there were seven deadly sins with seven corresponding cardinal virtues. Therefore, an allegorical reading of this story suggests that the seven rooms represent the seven stages of one's life, from birth to death, through which the prince pursues a figure masked as a victim of the Red Death, only to die himself in the final chamber of eternal night. The easternmost room is decorated in blue, with blue stained-glass windows.
Edgar Allen Poe’s, “The Masque of the Red Death”, is about a man named Prince Prospero and his attempts to avoid a dangerous plague. The plague is known as the Red Death. He plans to avoid the plague by hiding out in his abbey, along with other revelers during a masquerade ball in the seven rooms in the abbey. Through the locked gates, the mysterious figure finds its way into the party and causes death to all of the masqueraders. This story is often analyzed as an allegory about the inevitability of death.
“The Masque of the Red Death,” is about a prince named Prospero who witnesses a plague known as the Red Death, consuming the entire city. Prospero invites the elite of his kingdom to join him in his castle and take refuge from the poor people suffering and the disease. To help his guests ignore the disease and suffering right outside the castle he holds a masked ball. Throughout the story Poe uses symbolism to emphasize the plague and death in his story. Some of the important symbols in this story are the seven rooms where the ball is being held, the giant clock, the castle and Prince Prospero himself.