Commentary on The Masque Of The Red Death Essay

The short story The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe tells the tale of a prince who abandons his kingdom to flee from the ravages of a disease called the Red Death. He escapes with an entourage to a secluded abbey and celebrates with a masquerade ball. However, the epidemic arrives and enacts the demise of the prince and his company ultimately in the end. In The Masque of the Red Death, the author utilizes the elements of setting and symbolism to establish the thematic inevitability of death and the futility of mans attempt to elude his fate.

To begin with, Poe conveys the infallibility of death by depicting the location of the story as an abbey employed by its inhabitants as protection but is ultimately a fatal confinement. The portrayal of the castellated abbey is that of an extensive and magnificent structure(82) with gates of iron(83) that resolved to leave means neither of ingress or egress(83), so amply provisioned(83) that Prince Prospero and his guests might bid defiance to contagion(83). This aspect of the storys setting emphasizes the immoral judgment of the characters due to their selfish desire to live. In tumultuous times, the prince selfishly decides to abandon his subjects, using treasury to provision his seclusion with all the appliances of pleasure(83) instead of to aid the numerous in need. Poe effectively instills an atmosphere of vulnerability by depicting the foolish self-imprisonment of the cast, showing their denial of reality from the overpowering aspiration to outlive the Red Death.

The author develops several symbolic aspects to relate the story to the context of human life and demonstrate the imminence of death. While the disease raged on, security were within(83) the princes luxurious abode as he entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball,(83) held in an imperial suite(83) of seven chambers. The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time,(83) with periodical sharp turns that showcased the magnificence of a single room in all its glory of colorful uniformity. The unique disposition of the suite directly applies to the human perception of time. With the first room at the eastern extremity,(83) the connection of sunrise beginning a day signifies the birth of a lifetime and henceforth the western room as death.