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Thanatopsis And The Masque Of The Red Death Comparison Essay

989 Words4 Pages

Peyton Erwin

Mr. Rowan

English III/1

6 February 2023 The three works “Thanatopsis” by William Cullen Bryant, “The Raven”, and “The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe, all have similarities and differences throughout their stories. Most of these similarities and differences lead back to a theme they all share, death. Death is frequently brought up in all different ways in these stories, where it is represented in characters, blatantly spoken about, or hidden in imagery. Even though death is the most major similarity and difference these stories have, they have many more throughout each story. Starting with similarities, all 3 of these stories touch on death in some way, shape, or form. In “The Masque of the Red Death” the mysterious …show more content…

“Thanatopsis” death and how to approach and accept it is blatantly spoken about, “So live, that when thy summons comes to join the innumerable caravan, which moves to that of a mysterious realm, where each shall take his chamber in the silent halls of death, thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams” (Lines 73-81). In “The Masque of the Red Death” is represented by a figure who goes around Prince Prospero's castle and slays everyone, “And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall.”(Poe 180). And in “The Raven” death is represented by the Raven showing up and bringing death along with it “”Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting-”Get thee back into the tempest and Night’s Plutonian shore!”(Poe Lines 97-98). Another difference all these stories have is tone. “The Masque of the Red Death” tone is mysterious and dark, “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 horror of

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