In The Masque of the Red Death, by Edgar Allen Poe, Prince Prospero reflects one who lives a posh lifestyle. His significance to the story is to show that death takes anyone regardless of wealth. Furthermore, the masked ball itself serves as a distraction for the partygoers, “...it was a folly to grieve, or to think” (Poe, 420). Every room is decorated with its own color, most being colors of happiness, like green, but the seventh room is a dark and dreary red and black colors. That room symbolizes death, for it is designed with colors that are associated with horror movies and blood. In fact, the seventh room also contains the ebony clock that frightens the partygoers every time it rings. The ebony clock petrifies the guests because it literally
The seventh room also had the ebony clock. The rooms represent death and awaiting the death to come. The next symbol Poe uses to symbolize is the gate outside of Prince Prosperos
Though Poe took the short story in an entirely different sort of direction, some speculate that he got the idea from William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” Not only did he name the prince “Prospero” like the main character in “The Tempest,” but he also devised the plague from it. In “The Tempest,” the antagonist, Caliban, screams out, demanding the “red plague” kill Prospero. In “The Masque of the Red Death,” Poe refers to it differently, initially saying that the part was “without the ’Red Death,’” (Poe 15).
A great example of this would be, when “And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock,” (392). With each clock ring it symbolized that time is ending and death may be near. The silence is all around due to the guests scared and wondering if they are about to face death as the sound of the clock roars thorough the hallway. Furthermore, the apartments played a great part as well, “These panes here were scarlet – deep blood color” (391). The deep blood color showing the color related to death.
Survival doesn’t always come easy, most of the time you will have to make decisions that will make others judge you, whether you like it or not. For example, if someone left their friend to save themselves, should these people be held accountable for their actions? People shouldn’t be held accountable for those actions because when it comes to life or death that’s so much pressure to that person so of course they’re going to make mistakes and everyone makes mistakes we just have to learn from them. However, people will argue that if they put themselves in that situation they should be held accountable for their action In a story titled The Seventh Man, The story is about a boy and his friend who go to the beach after a storm and they end up in a life or death situation. When they were on the beach out of nowhere a huge wave starts to come towards them, which can kill them both, the Seventh man makes a decision “i told myself to to run over to K….
The Masque of the Red Death has a lot of symbolism that has to do with the circle of life- such as the different colors of the seven rooms each meaning one stage of life. The stages of life obviously have relations to death, possibly even being centered around it. The thought is just so artistically
Edger Allen Poe is an incredible author of horror. His story, The Masque of the Red Death, was an amazing chiller about a party that was ended by a disease. Throughout the kingdom a disease is spreading from citizen to citizen, killing each one who possesses it so the king invites those closes to him to a party where no one can leave and will be safe from the disease but yet in hindsight they were locking themselves in with the disease. Throughout the course of this hair-raising story, several symbols are represented to array Poe’s theme of death. Symbols such as the seven colored rooms, the clock, and lastly the Red Death are all symbols that are displayed to help get Poe’s notion across.
In the novel Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan, the author places high importance on the number seven, and uses it as a symbol. The main character, Willow Chance, was obsessed with the number seven in the beginning of the story. She thought of everything in sevens and one of the most comforting things for her to do was count by sevens. This is symbolic because it was as if her life was perfect and complete. Willow had a good life, spending time with her parents, researching medical conditions, planting in her garden…
Death can never be escaped no matter what. In “The Masque of the Red Death” Edgar Allan Poe shows the theme of death, a suspenseful mood, and an ominous tone. Through Poe’s use of literary devices, the reader can discover tone, theme, and mood. Throughout Poe’s life he experienced death with two of his mother’s and his young wife. Death is shown how inevitable it is with Poe’s writing and experiences combined together.
The Masque of the Red Death: Essay The Masque of the Red Death is a short gothic horror story. Overall is about a prince who thinks he is invincible, while having a party one night a mysterious guest appears and all the party-goers are very frightened of him. In the end this red death man kills the prince along with many other people at the party. This story became more horrific because the setting was in a castle, there was supernatural elements, and there was revenge.
For instance, Poe gave the name Prospero to a wealth prince. “But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious” (83). Giving the prince this name symbolizes the wealth of the prince, how he thrived, and how successful he was. Another example of symbolism is when the Red Death appears after the palace doors are bolted lock. “When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image solemn movement….”
As Prince Prospero and the masked guest go from room to room, they are symbolizing the progression of life from birth to death. This is an important symbol in the story because it emphasizes the theme of inescapable death. The next example is the Black Clock in the black room. This symbolizes the span of life. In the story, the clock struck midnight and the Prince’s time was up, symbolizing his life being over.
The narrator handles the situation logically and hopefully because of his fear of the unknown and what could be in the room. His careful acts served him right because they led to him overcoming the tortures and punishments. You see the use of symbolism in “The Tell-Tale Heart” used to show the representation of death in the eye. Irony in “The Masque of Red Death” showing Prince Prospero’s failure. And imagery showing how hope and logic leading to success in “The Pit and the Pendulum”.
Along with this, the symbols reveal how they reflect on the people themselves. Poe’s themes of humans cannot control death, creation to death, and anticipation are epitomized through the ebony clock and the seven
In “The Masque of Red Death”, the author includes 7 rooms, one being black, which is where the Prince locks himself in: “There were seven-an imperial suite… The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls…” (pg. 58). The seventh rooms shows how death is always there and always will be. The Prince fears that he’s going to be contaminated, so he does everything in his power to avoid death. The Prince creates an obsession over escaping death, what he doesn’t know is that death has always been there and always
What is the red death? The clock in the story means time fade always into you die. Room number seven means death because of the color and black in the story. The stranger in the story is death. This is what mostly what I’m going to be talking in the story.