Cynthia Soubra

The masque of the Red Death

Edgar Allan Poe is an American writer known for his dark, gothic style.

From a very young age, Poe had a very harsh childhood. His mother had

died of tuberculosis when he was very young, then both his foster parents

died then later on in his life, his wife had died because of tuberculosis as

well. His coworkers explained that he had problems with aggression, and

was not diagnosed but suspected to be depressed and bipolar. He died at the

age of 40 because of alcoholism.

Poe focused on bringing the darker side of reality through his literary work.

Now that we know more about his life, we can analyze the story he wrote

from a certain psychological approach.

Edgar Allan Poe wrote “the masque of the Red Death” and published it in

1842. Unlike usual stories, this one begins with a plot; the red death, a

plague, had taken over a land causing death among its citizens. The deadly

disease is characterized with “sharp pains” and “bleeding through the skin”

leading to an inevitable death within 30 minutes. Following the unfortunate

events, the ruler of the land, Prospero, tries to cheat death by escaping with
some of his healthy friends to one of his palaces. While escaping the reality

of the outside world, Prospero decides to throw a masquerade ball to his

guests. The ball takes place in seven rooms, each one characterized by a

different color. The seventh room, all black with bloody red windows,

contains a sinister clock that announces the time every 60 minutes. None of

the guests enter the room, afraid of its atmosphere. The climax of the story

happens right before the clock announces midnight, when the mystery guest,

wearing a bloody mask-or was it a mask? - appears and enrages Prospero

with his audacity. The mysterious figure leads Prospero to the seventh room,

where he kills him with one look into his eyes.

Finally the ironic ending and resolution happens when the identity of the

uninvited guest is revealed to the rest of the guests after taking off his mask.

Red Death had personally come to take what was his.

As we can clearly tell by the atmosphere Poe put us readers in, the entire

theme of the story focuses on death and the phases of life. In his description

of the chambers, Poe reminds us of the process of the day. He starts

describing the rooms from east to west using colors that can be seen during

different hours of the day such as blue purple and green for dawn, yellow

white for daylight and finally black for night.

As the characters in the story are escaping the outside world, we can

compare the chambers to the phases of life they are trying to escape. More

significantly, the seventh chamber, the one that Poe gives a metaphor to

emphasize its darkness “black as night”, is the one that all the guests are

avoiding. The room can be a symbol of death, which is what everyone

present in the story is ultimately trying to avoid. Moreover, the author gives

a deep description about a clock present in the dark room. The clock seems

to announce the time every hour with a “loud, clear voice, a deep tone as

beautiful as music”. The clock of course, is another reminder that the time is

passing and that no matter where they are; the characters in the story won’t

escape death. Indeed, Poe compares the clock’s voice to music for the ironic

purpose that the guests stop dancing whenever the clock speaks simply

because they are reminded that their time is coming.

An important element to be mentioned is the structure that Poe uses when

talking about the events. Indeed, he starts by talking about the red death,

goes on to talk about the rooms, clock and masquerade ball then ends his

story with the red death again, forming a circle going from death to death.

This structure is used in order to emphasize the fact that no matter how or

where you go death will find you, thus emphasizing that death is inevitable.
When describing the symptoms of the red death “sharp pains, and a sudden

feeling that the mind was rushing in circles inside the head. Then there was

bleeding through the skin”, it is clear that Poe was comparing it to

pulmonary tuberculosis, which was characterized by chest pains, coughing

up of blood and fatigue. Poe had lost many people in his life due to

tuberculosis so it is evident that it had a huge impact on his writing and

personal life.

Finally, the ending takes place when the guests find out that the mysterious

figure is Red death. Poe gives a personification to death to emphasize the

fact that although they thought hiding out in this big palace will keep them

safe, death came in the most unexpected form and claimed what was his,

killing everyone present at the scene. The ending in indeed ironic as the

whole purpose of staying in the palace was to escape death, which still

followed them there.

The moral of this story is that it is important to live life but fighting the

inevitable death is useless.

Due to his hard life, it is hard to disassociate Poe’s experience with death

from his writing.