Irrationality In The Masque Of The Red Death

He continues to describe the “Red Death,” stating that there were “Sharp pains and dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores,” (Poe 3). By describing the disease so vividly, Poe is giving the reader a visual image to magnify the dreaminess of the story. He does this again when describing the attendees of the Masquerade. He describes them, saying, “There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions.

Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston; unsurprisingly, he had a rather dreadful childhood, his family was very poor and struggling to fend for themselves. By 1811, Poe’s father, David Poe abandoned the family. Subsequently, his younger sister died of tuberculosis. Shortly after Poe was then separated from his siblings and placed in a foster home. This early childhood may have influenced his point of view to be rather dark, grim, and covert, as his writing reflects the hardships in his childhood.

The poem “Battlefield” by August Stramm uses imagery to depict the destruction that the human body can take. On the bodies, “bloods clot the patches where they oozed, rusts crumble, fleshes slime, sucking lusts around decay” (Stramm). The bodies are disgusting and completely disfigured and with every blink, there is more and more death. Similarly, the poem “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen also portrays the repulsive circumstances that the body is put under. Described is a man’s “hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin… the blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues” (Owen).

An example of imagery would be “The “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its avatar and its seal-the redness and the horror of blood.” In this quote Poe is giving the reader an idea of the “Red Death”. The reader can really get a sense of fear or horror from this imagery.

The color red is very symbolic throughout the story because of the variety of red mentioned in the setting. “The gruesome description of the Red Death gives the color a ghastly connotation, especially in light of the red window panes contained in the death room at the far western end of the imperial suite” (Lorcher). Lorcher describes the red and black room as being the death room, and how the name of the illness gives a much darker meaning to the color red. For example, in the story Poe uses “a deep blood color” instead of a deep red color because he wants the setting to be dark and mysterious (Poe 342). “But in the western or black chamber the effect of the firelight that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all” (Poe 342).The guests in

The first ironic implement about the story is Fortunato’s name. The name Fortunato is a cognate for the word fortunate. This ties in with the theme of revenge because Fortunato is about to suffer an extremely unfortunate fate. Irony and foreshadow is found when Montresor and Fortunato first enter the catacomb. Fortunato begins to cough due to the dampness and nitre in the catacomb.

Throughout his stages of character development it is easy to depict what changes have occurred and what has influenced such a transition. In Act ii-iii it is presented that his evil conscience is what built his downfall. When Macbeth was informed that Duncan made him the Thane of Cawsor, he gives into the temptations suggested by the witches and becomes merciless towards the act of murder. In this case Macbeth states, “My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, shakes so my single state of man that function; is smother’d in sunrise.” (i.iii.139-141).

The method of suicide the monster choose to was a bit peculiar as well. There are a plethora of ways to off yourself that don’t involve this level torture. It may be thought of this being a way for him to wash, or burn, away his sins. “Do not think that I shall be slow to perform this sacrifice. [...] I shall collect my funeral pile and consume to ashes this miserable frame” (197).

Blood will have blood. (3.4. ?)” The association of blood to his murderous crimes is used to signify his dirty conscious. Blood is messy and can stain clothes similarly to how the repercussions of Macbeth’s actions have a lasting effect of his conscience. He is experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder by reliving the horrors of confronting his actions.

Macbeth is a piece of Shakespeare that will last forever. It is a tale of manipulation, murder, deceit, and a man falling into all these traps. A man whose quest for the throne turns him into a murder, his conscious gets consumed by bloodshed and greed. Shakespeare uses blood in a symbolic way throughout the story. Being that the story weighs heavily on blood and guilt, blood represents life at the beginning of the play and then turns into guilt throughout the story.