Cynthia Soubra
The masque of the Red Death
Edgar Allan Poe is an American writer known for his dark, gothic style.
From a very young age, Poe had a very harsh childhood. His mother had
died of tuberculosis when he was very young, then both his foster parents
died then later on in his life, his wife had died because of tuberculosis as
well. His coworkers explained that he had problems with aggression, and
was not diagnosed but suspected to be depressed and bipolar. He died at the
age of 40 because of alcoholism.
Poe focused on bringing the darker side of reality through his literary work.
Now that we know more about his life, we can analyze the story he wrote
from a certain psychological approach.
Edgar Allan Poe wrote “the masque of the Red Death” and published it in
1842. Unlike usual stories, this one begins with a plot; the red death, a
plague, had taken over a land causing death among its citizens. The deadly
disease is characterized with “sharp pains” and “bleeding through the skin”
leading to an inevitable death within 30 minutes. Following the unfortunate
events, the ruler of the land, Prospero, tries to cheat death by escaping with
some of his healthy friends to one of his palaces. While escaping the reality
of the outside world, Prospero decides to throw a masquerade ball to his
guests. The ball takes place in seven rooms, each one characterized by a
different color. The seventh room, all black with bloody red windows,
contains a sinister clock that announces the time every 60 minutes. None of
the guests enter the room, afraid of its atmosphere. The climax of the story
happens right before the clock announces midnight, when the mystery guest,
wearing a bloody mask-or was it a mask? - appears and enrages Prospero
with his audacity. The mysterious figure leads Prospero to the seventh room,
where he kills him with one look into his eyes.
Finally the ironic ending and resolution happens when the identity of the
uninvited guest is revealed to the rest of the guests after taking off his mask.
Red Death had personally come to take what was his.
As we can clearly tell by the atmosphere Poe put us readers in, the entire
theme of the story focuses on death and the phases of life. In his description
of the chambers, Poe reminds us of the process of the day. He starts
describing the rooms from east to west using colors that can be seen during
different hours of the day such as blue purple and green for dawn, yellow
white for daylight and finally black for night.
As the characters in the story are escaping the outside world, we can
compare the chambers to the phases of life they are trying to escape. More
significantly, the seventh chamber, the one that Poe gives a metaphor to
emphasize its darkness “black as night”, is the one that all the guests are
avoiding. The room can be a symbol of death, which is what everyone
present in the story is ultimately trying to avoid. Moreover, the author gives
a deep description about a clock present in the dark room. The clock seems
to announce the time every hour with a “loud, clear voice, a deep tone as
beautiful as music”. The clock of course, is another reminder that the time is
passing and that no matter where they are; the characters in the story won’t
escape death. Indeed, Poe compares the clock’s voice to music for the ironic
purpose that the guests stop dancing whenever the clock speaks simply
because they are reminded that their time is coming.
An important element to be mentioned is the structure that Poe uses when
talking about the events. Indeed, he starts by talking about the red death,
goes on to talk about the rooms, clock and masquerade ball then ends his
story with the red death again, forming a circle going from death to death.
This structure is used in order to emphasize the fact that no matter how or
where you go death will find you, thus emphasizing that death is inevitable.
When describing the symptoms of the red death “sharp pains, and a sudden
feeling that the mind was rushing in circles inside the head. Then there was
bleeding through the skin”, it is clear that Poe was comparing it to
pulmonary tuberculosis, which was characterized by chest pains, coughing
up of blood and fatigue. Poe had lost many people in his life due to
tuberculosis so it is evident that it had a huge impact on his writing and
personal life.
Finally, the ending takes place when the guests find out that the mysterious
figure is Red death. Poe gives a personification to death to emphasize the
fact that although they thought hiding out in this big palace will keep them
safe, death came in the most unexpected form and claimed what was his,
killing everyone present at the scene. The ending in indeed ironic as the
whole purpose of staying in the palace was to escape death, which still
followed them there.
The moral of this story is that it is important to live life but fighting the
inevitable death is useless.
Due to his hard life, it is hard to disassociate Poe’s experience with death
from his writing.
