Examples Of Marxism In The Mask Of The Red Death

“ ‘With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think.” King Prospero. Through history, such convictions summoned up notorious class division, hostility, fanaticism, corruption, social and economic privation. Undeniably, this arguments being deeply discussed by ‘the Marxist theory’, demonstrates horrid struggles between the versatile social classes for the sake of swallowing the opposite class. Based on that, ‘Edgar Allan Poe’’- a well - known American writer of his intricate Gothic style - highlights in his masterpiece: ‘‘the mask of the red death’’ the willingness of the upper class to submerge the working class, which is often called - the wretched -.

The only known character in the story is the king Prospero who, in his sol conflict with a mysterious pestilence that has ravaged the countryside-which resembles to the massive black death that seized Europe- , collects his closest knights, women and figures belonging to the upper class of his court and welds shut a sealed off luxurious castle as an attempt to escape death. . Hence, this hideous action is a tangible evidence of the greedy ambitions of the upper class that regard the below class as a mere force so worthwhile for labor and serving the upper offshoot. Poe in his story describes the castle as a heavenly fine place of luxurious seven rooms to celebrate a grotesque masquerade ball. The crowd celebrated in an attempt to forget the hell outside the gates of the sealed castle. Namely, the ball interprets the lofty class’s economic and moral corruption, accordingly they left the poor wretches die outdoors. As a consequence, the Marxist ideology believes in potential revolutionary blast of the lower offspring in order to gain proper life