“Masque of the Red Death”

“Masque of the Red Death” By Edgar Allen Poe

Allegory • a story in which the characters and events are symbols that stand for ideas about human life or for a political or historical situation • the objective of its use is to preach some kind of a moral lesson.

7 Rooms • 7 rooms are allegorical arranged from East to West

East / West ? • East=the directions associated with “beginnings,” and birth, because the sun rises in the East. • West=direction of the sunset. Associated with endings, and death

7 Rooms • Blue -birth, suggests the unknown from which a human being comes into the world. • Purple – combination of Blue (birth) and Red (associated with life, intensity) suggests the beginning of growth. • Green – suggest the “spring” of life (youth) • Orange – the summer and autumn of life

7 Rooms 5. White-suggests age, white hair, bones 6. Violet – combination of purple and blue or purple and grey, a shadowy color, represents darkness and death 7. Black - Death

Rooms • The revelers (partiers) don’t go into the black room, they fear death • The Red Death walks from the blue room to the black room • Thus walking the course of life from birth to death • Prospero follows the Red Death

Rooms • In following the Red Death Prospero and his guest rush into the black room to unmask the Red Death, and die. • So, the course the characters walk in the story is both literally and metaphorically the course from life to death

The Clock as a symbol • A symbol of death • Symbol of the passing of “the time that flies” • The inevitability of death • The eerie chiming of the clock on the hour is a reminder to the revelers that their lives are drifting away with the time, and that death is approaching

The “Castellated Abbey” • Cut off and secluded, hidden away • Doors are welded shut from the inside (Gives the story a threatening atmosphere) • Symbol of worldly power • Standing above the pheasants • Represents both the State and the Church

Imagery • the formation of mental images, figures, or likenessesof things, or of such imagescollectively • pictorial images.

Imagery examples • Masquerade ballroom-everything is too wild, too intense, too frenzied and too “grotesque” • Masqueraders- dressed up in bizarre costumes, a truly mad collage of images, Poe uses dream images to describe them • Withering dancers • Swelling music • Giddiness • Dizzying scene

“Masque of the Red Death”