My Favorite Work of Edgar Allen Poe Masque of the Red Death

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Edgar Allan Poe was famous for his poems, short stories, motifs, themes, etc. After reading three of his most famous works: “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Raven,” and “The Masque of the Red Death,” I found that the “Masque of the Red Death” was my personal favorite. In this story, Edgar Allan Poe enthralled the reader with his entire concept, symbols, and the way he infused history into the interesting and haunting story. I believe that Edgar Allan Poe did a wonderful job of portraying the effects of the horrible disease Red Death. Poe used a concept everyone knows of, a party, to display how sneaky and powerful the death was. Prince Prospero was the protagonist of “The Masque of the Red Death” and was according to the text, “he was happy, dauntless, and sagacious” (Poe 13). To escape the plague, Prince Prosper invited a thousand of “hale and lighthearted” (Poe 13) friends and courtsmen to come join him in his voluntary seclusion. They wanted to lock themselves inside the walls, to lock the Red Death out. As the party and plague continued to rule Prince Prospero and his friends, they all began to feel nervous and agitated for an unknown reason. The tension caused by these feelings was intensified when many individuals in the party became aware of a mysterious masked figure, who was sneakily and silently spreading its presence (sickness) around the castle. The shadowy masked figure was the Red Death itself. I loved this concept and plot because I believe that it appropriately infused this death with a happy and joyful time, which really showed The Red Death’s power and ever-presence during its reign. A major way that the power of The Red Death was shown was through the many symbols that Edgar Allan Poe used. Ma... ... middle of paper ... ...of the people (even though the quote is cased in the present and looking back). The Red Death was instrumental in European History, and Poe did a wonderful and interesting job of exposing this history. The fact that really attracted me to this story was that I knew a lot about the plague, and I was able to make a lot of connections between the “The Masque of The Red Death” and history. This story shows how sneaky and powerful the plague was filters the history into the elaborate story very nicely. “The Masque of The Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe was my favorite of the three because it had an elaborate and absorbing plot, wonderful symbols, and a very interesting history. All of the themes, motifs, and other elements used in this story really tied it all together, and made a very bold, fascinating, and somewhat historical story that I really enjoyed reading.

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