More handpicked essays just for you.
Edgar allan poe masque of the red death analysis
Masque of the red death essay as the red death
Figurative language in a literary work
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
=In “The Masque of the Red Death”, by Edgar Allen Poe, figurative language is used in several ways to create a strange and eerie setting. The first description of the red death paints a vivid and gruesome scene of what it can do to a person. Poe describes it as above any other disease and says “No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its avator and its seal — the redness and the horror of blood” (Poe 1). The red death renders people stained with blood that seeps out of their pores as they suffer from it, again creating a terrifying image of the infection. There is also no way away from the red ded death, due to the fact that the setting in which the disease is spreading is completely sealed off in a castellated abbey,
“The scarlet stains upon the body, and especially upon the face of the victim, caused terror in those watching the afflicted” (7). The story starts off with the prince getting away to a castle with his healthy friends. They were going to throw a masque party, and all was going well until the masker showed up. Everyone was scared including the knights. As the masker made its way from the blue room to the black room, nobody moved. The prince felt like it was his job to get up and take control. He entered the black room with the Masker and that’s when everyone heard a scream, the prince was dead. Eventually, all his friends dropped dead too. In “The Masque of the Red Death” the seven rooms represent the seven stages of life; infancy, childhood,
Authors use various styles to tell their stories in order to appeal to the masses exceptionally well and pass the message across. These messages can be communicated through short stories, novels, poems, songs and other forms of literature. Through The Masque of the Red Death and The Raven, it is incredibly easy to get an understanding of Edgar Allen Poe as an author. Both works describe events that are melodramatic, evil and strange. It is also pertinent to appreciate the fact that strange plots and eerie atmospheres are considerably evident in the author’s writings. This paper compares and contrasts The Masque of the Red Death and The Raven and proves that the fear of uncertainty and death informs Edgar Allen Poe’s writings in the two works
In the "Masque of the Red Death," the first sentence, "The Red Death had long devastated the country," sets the tone for the whole story. Poe describes the horrors of the disease, stressing the redness of the blood and the scarlet stains. The disease kills so quickly that one can die within thirty minutes of being infected with the disease. To create a frightening effect of the revulsion of this disease, Poe uses words such as "devastated," "fatal," "horror of blood," and "sharp pains and profuse bleeding." In summary, the story relates the prince, trying to be safe and away from the horrible death, invites a thousand friends to be in seclusion in his abbey away from the disease. During a celebration , a masked ball at the abbey - with incredible described rooms and moods - a surprise masked intruder causes death to all.
Zapf, Hubert. “Entropic Imagination in Poe’s ‘The Masque of the Red Death’.” College Literature 16.3 (Fall 1989): p211-218. Literature Resource Center. Web. 19 March 2012.
presence of the Red Death in the abbey, and to aide in the climax of events.
The first technique Poe uses in both stories is symbolism, which aids the reader in understanding the theme. In “The Masque of the Red Death,” Edgar Allan Poe uses symbolism to aid the reader in teaching the theme that death is inevitable. While explaining the setting, Poe describes a black room with red windows and then begins
used to symbolize death. Poe's use of language and symbolism is shown in his description of the
‘The white eyes writhing in his face.the blood.gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs.’ The physical horror of this helps shape his message. It is addressed to the propaganda poet Jessie Pope and tells her that it is a lie to say that it is sweet and honorable to die for one’s country. A similar message in ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ describes the same. slaughtered young men who ‘die as cattle’.
Poe has shown a rough interpretation of life and death. Death introduces itself in the form of “The Red Death.” It strikes suddenly without empathy. “No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous.
In the story, “Masque of the Red Death” it covers six months during the Red Death.It takes place in a castle which has seven different colored rooms.In the beginning of the story it describes the main character prince Prospero as happy,fearless and wise. Towards the end of the story a new guest appears to the party and everyone is scared and Prospero goes from being happy to mad and in the end the new guest kills Prospero and everyone dies because he was the Red Death. The message in this analogy ,”The Masque of the Red Death “ by Poe is life passes by so quick that you don't realize what's going on until it's your time to die.
To illustrate this characteristic, Poe places the prince's party in “deep seclusion,” knowing that those people could die at any moment. (Poe 1) This extensive separation between the Prince's party people and the poor people left outside to face the Red Death reveals much gothic horror. Gothic literature and human behavior share dark traits as revealed through this great division between people. Equally important is the imagery of the spooky seventh apartment that Poe describes here: “The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue.”
Edgar All Poe is known as the father of the horror story. His tales of terror, agony, and enchantment all follow a certain set of rules, the elements of gothic literature, that allow Edgar to get the same bone-chilling result from his readers. Through the use of setting, metonymy, and inexplicable/supernatural events he has created a mood of suspense and mystery in one of his most famous pieces “The Mask of The Red Death”. The story is a horrifying tale of a Prince who town is ravaged by a gruesome plague called The Red Death. He invites people, whom he feels deserve to live, to a masquerade in his castle. There are there to escape the death that looms outside. Little do they know, death is clever and no matter what it is impossible to hide
“Death is not the greatest lost in life. The greatest lost is what dies inside of us while we live” (Norman Cousins). Everyone has to approach the afterlife; it is a part of life that is unbearable to even speak about. Edgar Allen Poe delivers his theme that no one escapes death in his short story “The Masque of the Red Death” through symbolism, setting, and narration. One can assume The Red Death perhaps was based off of the Black Death, which swept fourteenth- century Europe and Asia. This historical epidemic killed 25 million lives which is the same as sixty-seven percent of the population in the regions in less than two decades. It is assumed that Mr. Poe referred to the Black Death as the “Red Death”
The story is not only about the horror of red death, but also the irony of the impossible effort of escaping death regardless of power, wealth, and social status. The plot of the story was effectively written with an excellent exposition that introduces metaphorical settings, historic characters, and extraordinary situations, creating such a strong effect on describing the horror of the read death. For example, the transition in color and decorations of the seven rooms symbolizes the stages of life and the contrary of the seventh room depicts the last stage of life which is death. Poe describes that ceiling and the walls in the seventh room are hung with black velvet tapestries falling in heavy folds upon the carpet with the same material and hue (“The Masque of the Red Death” 688). However, “in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet—a deep blood color” (“The Masque of the Red Death” 688). This particular setting provokes such an unpleasant feeling toward the readers since the red color is often used as a conventional image or symbol which is associated with death.
“The Masque of the Red Death.” Short Stories for Students. Ed. Ira Milne. Vol. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2000. 232-260. Short Stories for Students. Web. 12 Jan. 2010.