Name Carlos Andres Mantilla Diaz Block
The Masque of the Red Death Text Dependent Questions
Text-dependent Questions
Who is Prince Prospero and what do you know about him?
 The prince Prospero was a powerful and wealthy man.
He was happy and dauntless but when his dominions, his
nation had been devastated by the pestilence. He was
sagacious and don’t matter him the plague. He built an
amazing and magnificent abbey and while the nation
died by the plague, Prospero danced and enjoyed with
the guests (his friends).
What is the significance of the different colored rooms? What
details about their locations and order help to explain their
significance?
Evidence-based Answers
•“It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion that the
Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most
unusual magnificence”.
• "happy and dauntless and sagacious"
• “Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the
most unusual magnificence.”
The different colors rooms explain about the life cycles. To born, to grow up, to
reproduce and to die.
The first chamber is the blue one. That color makes reference to the life. The story said
“…and vividly blue were its windows...” indicating people’s birth, the light to the end.
The second chamber is the purple one. That color makes reference to the childhood. That
color is representing the energy, vitality that the children show.
The third chamber is the green one. That color makes reference to the youth. The writer
told about the casements. He said that the casements were green too. The casements is
representing the strong and youthfulness that person young.
The fourth chamber is the orange one. That chamber is a combination with the chamber
green because is representing the transition of people from their youth to the maturity.
The fifth chamber is the white one. That color makes reference to the age. The sixth is the
chamber violet one. The meaning of this chamber is that moment when the people
complete the life cycle and only wait for death. Finally the last chamber is the black one.
That chamber is representing the death. We can look that, when the writer said “…The
seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the
ceiling and down the walls…” and when the writer talks about the windows. He said “the
color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations” “…a deep blood color…”
that color ending with the death.
Why do the revelers cease dancing and listen to the chiming of
the clock and who does the clock seem to effect more?
All the guests chiming when the clock sound because is very
confused for them to listen it while they dance and enjoy the
reception. However the guests continued dancing and laughing. The
clock represent the time our lives. It’s a reminder about our life. Each
minute and each hour is representing our life time on the earth. When
the clock strikes upon the hour and the sun begins to fade represented
that the life is reducing. The people cant to back the time. The
midnight represented the death.
Based on context, what is a mummer? What words and
phrases does Poe use to describe the mummer and what do
these words mean?
The mummer is the death. It’s the representation of that moment
when our life end. Resembles someone with the red death disease,
face looks like a corpse and dabbed with blood. The writer use
some word or phrases to describe the mummer.
 “It pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous
clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and
the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the
clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly
musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of
an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause,
momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound; and thus
the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief
disconcert of the whole gay company; and while the chimes of the
clock yet rang. it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the
more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in
confused revery or meditation”
 “…But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red
Death…”
 “…His vesture was dabbled in blood…”
 “…this spectral image (which with a slow and solemn movement, as if
more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers)…”
Why does Prince Prospero call the mummer’s appearance
“blasphemous mockery”?
The prince believed that the mummer was a reveler in a  When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell on this spectral image (which,
mask. He believed that blasphemous mockery was made with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role,
for interrupter the event. That is the reason why he said stalked to and from among the waltzes) he was seen to be convulsed, in
“…Seize him and unmask him — that we may know whom the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but in
we have to hang at sunrise, from the battlements...” but, the next, his brow reddened with rage”.
he didn’t know that the blasphemous mockery was the
death that came in for him.

What is the central theme of the story? Support your answer

with textual evidence.

The central theme of the story is about the death. Anybody •“And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like
cannot escape this fact. The writer explains the life cycle with a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed
colors and explains the death with an interesting mood because halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the
his style is the horror, the darkness. We are all equal in the eyes life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames
of death. When the writer said …” And now was acknowledged of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held
the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the illimitable dominion over all”.
night…” referring to death and when he said “…one by one
dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel,
and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life
of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And
the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and
the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all…” was talking
about the end of life.
 The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe
Discussion Questions

1. How does social-economic status affect if one survives or falls victim to the Red Death?

At that time, people who had money could be safe from the diseases for a while to avoid
contagion but the death always will come. These are the Poe thoughts; he says that is
impossible to avoid this fact.
2. There is no allusion to where or how the “Red Death” originally began, only to
how it spreads. Why?

I think that the writer not explain which are the causes of the diseases or the plague,
because for him it’s not relevant (there is not something exactly about the symptoms)
but the author thinks that not necessary.
3. What do you make of the colors of the chambers? Furthermore, there is an emphasis
on the most eastern chamber being blue and the most western being black velvet and
red. Why might this be?
Poe used the different colors for to explain the life cycle. He began with blue because that
color representing the birth and finish with black because representing the death. That and
all colors are representing de beginning and the end about the life. The east symbolize the
rising sun and west symbolize the setting sun, all it is representing the life cycle.

4. Since time is referenced so often, what is its importance to the story? And what is
the meaning behind the hourly striking of the clock?
The meaning when the clock strike is each minute is everybody has a purpose in the earth.
Each minute is that time that every person has in this world. When the clock strikes upon the
hour and the sun begins to fade represented that the life is reducing. The people cant to back
the time. Represent reality, their lives slowly ticking away.
5. How do the prince and his guests act like a disease in a body?
We can see in this story that disease went throughout the guest’s body. Each room
represented a color or a life stage and each guest when the death arrived passed all the rooms.