The Masque Of The Red Death Analysis

The short story, The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe, is set in Prince Prospero’s “castellated abbeys”, where he achieves “deep seclusion” from the outside world. Prince Prospero’s purpose of this was to escape from the “Red Death”, which is described as a fatal disease that “had long devastated the country”. The major events in the story take place in “an imperial suite”, which consists of seven rooms, and the way Poe presents this setting, helps to create an eerie and deadly atmosphere. Firstly, the seven rooms in the “imperial suite” are described in order from “that at the eastern extremity” to that at the western extremity. The way Poe does this makes us recall the movement of the sun during the day, since the sun rises in

This monologue is found in William Shakespeare’s play, As You Like it, and it describes the seven stages of life, which are birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, maturing, old age, and lastly, death. This idea is accentuated in the story by the way each room has a theme color, as indicated by the phrase, “These windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened.” The first room is “vividly blue”, which corresponds to the birth of a human being, since blue recalls the beginning of the day, and thus the beginning of human life. The next room is purple, which suits the childhood aspect of life, as purple is a mixture of blue and red, which are colors that represent morning and noon, respectively. From this, it can be said that the color, or time, in between corresponds to the early stages of life. The third room is green, and this prompts us to think of the freshness of spring, since this is the season in which many greenery flourishes. Hence, the green room symbolizes the stage of life when new opportunities arise, which is adolescence. The following room is orange, which makes us think of autumn, or the season in which leaves turn orange and brown. This denotes the adulthood of humans when one’s life begins to wither, as fall is

The socio-economic background of the characters is exemplified by the name of the prince, “Prospero”, that recalls the word, “prosperity” in English, and this accentuates the fact that the prince is a dominant and wealthy figure in the country. Moreover, we are able to understand that the prince discriminates those from the lower social classes, as he secludes himself from the outside world and only invites his friends to the “masked ball”. This depicts how there is a great difference between the rich and the poor in Price Prospero’s country, which also consists with the situation during the Middle Ages in Europe. In addition, the spread of the “Red Death” also makes us think of the ‘Black Death’, which was an actual epidemic and fatal disease that occurred in Europe during the Middle Ages. Additionally, referring back the seventh room in the “imperial suite”, the fact that this room was decorated with both black and red, hints how the two diseases, one imaginary and one real, are closely related. Furthermore, because the word, “prospero”, exists in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, which are languages of European countries, the statement that the “Red Death” reflects the ‘Black Death’ is further supported. Therefore, by making the time period and culture of the story