The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe
The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen PoeEdgar Allen Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death” is an elaborate allegory that combines objects in the story with visual descriptions to give focus to the reader’s imagination. In the story, a prince named Prospero tries to dodge the Red Death through isolation and seclusion. He hides behind impenetrable walls of his castellated abbey and lets the world take care of its own. But no walls can stop death because it is unavoidable and inevitable. Visual descriptions in the story are used to symbolize the death that came to a dark, unkind and ignorant prince. Prospero failed to see that death “held illimitable dominion over all.”
The manner in which Prospero arranged his castle symbolically hinted the coming of death: “The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue.” This dark manner in which the castle was decorated conforms to the image of the Prince being a...
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