"The Red death had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever before been so fatal, or therefore hideous....There were spicy pains, and also sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, through dissolution. The scarlet stains top top the body and especially ~ above the face...shut out native the aid and indigenous the sympathy of his other men....
he entirety seizure, progress, and also termination that the disease, to be the events of fifty percent an hour."When Prince Prospero"s "...dominions were fifty percent depopulated, he summoned come his existence a thousands hale and lighthearted friends from amongst the knights and also dames that his court, and with this retired come the deep seclusion of among his castellated abbeys....A strong and lofty wall surface girdled it. This wall had gateways of iron." The Prince had actually the bolts the the gates welded which left neither means "of ingress or egress to the suddenly impulses that despair or of frenzy indigenous within.""The abby to be amply provisioned....The prince had provided all the appliances the pleasure....buffoons,...improvisatori,...ballet dancers,...musicians,...Beauty,...wine. Every these and security to be within. Without to be the "Red Death." ""It was towards the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion,...that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked round of the many unusual magnificence....t was his very own guiding taste i beg your pardon had given character come the masqueraders. Be certain they were grotesque....There to be arabesque numbers with unsuited limbs and appointments....madman fashions...much that the beautiful, lot of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and also not a little of the which might have excited disgust."The masque was organized in an royal suite consist of of seven rooms. "The apartments were so irregularly disposed the the vision embraced but little much more than one at a time. There was a sharp rotate at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each rotate a novel effect. To the right and left, in the center of every wall, a tall and narrow Gothic home window looked the end upon a closed corridor which gone after the windings that the suite. These home windows were that stained glass whose shade varied in accordance through the prevailing hue the the decorations of the chamber into which that opened. That at the east extremity was...blue-and vividly blue to be its windows. The 2nd chamber was purple in that is ornaments and also tapestries, and also here the panes were purple. The third was eco-friendly throughout....The fourth...orange...the fifth...white...the sixth...violet. The seventh apartment was carefully shrouded in black color velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and also down the walls,... a carpet that the exact same material and hue. Yet in this room only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes were scarlet--a deep blood color.""There was no light of any kind ...within the suite of chambers. However in the corridors...opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier the fire...projected that rays v the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room....But in the...black chamber...so wild a watch upon the countenances that those who entered , that there were couple of of the firm bold sufficient to set foot within its precincts in ~ all."It to be within this very same apartment that there stood a huge ebony clock who pendulum swang "to and fro through a dull, heavy, monotonous clang." All that were existing froze, and also all tasks ceased with the sound of every hour by the clock. Musicians paused; waltzers quit their dance; and the giddy prospered pale. "But when the echoes had completely ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly...."The first six apartments to be densely overfilled unlike the seventh. The festivities ongoing "until at length there commenced the sound of midnight ~ above the clock. And also then the music ceased...and the evolutions the the waltzers to be quieted; and also there to be an uneasy cessation of all points as before.... the critical echoes the the critical chime...sunk into silence, there were plenty of individuals in the crowd who had...become conscious of the presence of a masked figure ....here arose at length from the whole company... the disapprobation and surprise-then finally, that terror, that horror, and also of disgust....he mummer had actually gone so far regarding assume the kind of the Red Death."When the eye of Prince Prospero dropped upon this spectral image...he was viewed to it is in convulsed, in the first moment with a solid shudder one of two people of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage. "Who dares?...Who dares humiliation us through this blasphemous mockery? grab him and unmask him--that us may know whom we need to hang in ~ sunrise, from the battlements!" here were discovered none who put forth hand to seize him; so that unimpeded, passed within a garden of the prince"s person...
made his way uninterruptedly, however with the exact same solemn and also measured step...through ." Prince Prospero with attracted dagger and also maddened through rage rushed after ~ the intruder. At critical they gotten in the seventh and also final chamber. The Prince had actually approached within 3 or 4 feet the the figure when the mummer all of sudden turned and also confronted him. "There was a spicy cry-and the dagger dropped gleaming top top the sable carpet, ~ above which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in fatality the Prince Prospero.... a throng of the revelers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and seizing the mummer...gasped in unutterrable fear at finding the grave cerements and also corpselike mask i beg your pardon they tackled with for this reason violent a rudeness untenanted by any kind of tangible form.""And now was recognized the existence of the Red Death. He had actually come prefer a thef in the night." One by one the revelers died; and when the critical one had actually died, "the life that the ebony clock went out....And the flames the the tripods expired. And also Darkness and Decay and the Red death held illimitable ascendancy over all."
Setting
The story covers a period of approximately six months during the power of the Red Death. The action takes location in " deep seclusion of among castellated abbeys." The "masque" takes ar in the royal suite which had seven, really distinct rooms. (See format for a an ext indepth conversation of the definition of the setting to this specific story.)
Characters
This story has actually no personalities in the usual feeling which lends credibility to an allegorical interpretation. Only Prince Prospero speaks. His name says happiness and an excellent fortune; however, ironically this is not the case. Within the Prince"s abbey, the has developed a world of his imagination with masked figures that reflect "his very own guiding taste." this dancers are so much a product the the Prince"s creativity that Poe refers to them together "a multitude that dreams." also when the "Red Death" enters, the writer refers to this character as a "figure" or a "mummer" who "was tall and guant, and shrouded from head come foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask...was made...to resemble the countenance the a stiffened corpse....But the mummer had actually gone so far regarding assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture to be dabbled in blood-and his large brow, through all the functions of the face, to be besprinkled v the scarlet horror." as soon as the mummer is seized towards the finish of the story, every "gasped in unutterable fear at finding the tomb cerements and also corpselike mask...untenanted by any tangible form."
Point of View
Poe express his dislike because that allegory - "a tale in prose or city in i m sorry characters, actions or settings represent abstract concepts or moral qualities." Poe said that allegory was an worse literary form because it is designed come evoke interest in both the narrative and also the abstract ideas for which the rigid stands, i beg your pardon distracts the reader from the singleness of impact that Poe most valued in literature. "Under the best circumstances, that must always interfere v that unity of effect which, to the artist, is worth every the allegory in the world." however Poe himself openly supplied allegory, together in "The Haunted Palace" verses i beg your pardon he put into his story, "The autumn of the house of Usher," and in "The Masque that the Red Death." (See format for allegorical interpretation.)
Style and InterpretationPoe"s story takes location in seven linked but carefully separated rooms. This reminds the leader of the past definition of the number seven. (The history of the people was thought to consist of of seven ages, simply as one individual"s life had actually seven stages. The ancient world had actually seven wonders; universities separated learning right into seven subjects; there were seven deadly sins v seven matching cardinal virtues, and also the number 7 is necessary in mysticism.) Therefore, one allegorical analysis of this story argues that the seven rooms represent the seven stages the one"s life, from birth to death, through which the prince pursues a number masked together a victim the the Red Death, only to dice himself in the final chamber the eternal night. The prince"s name suggests happiness and an excellent fortune, and also the prince, as with all us uses pleasure to wall out the danger of death. Prince Prospero"s masked ball or dance reminds united state of the "dance the death" illustrated in old paintings as a skeleton leading a throng of human being to the grave, just as the prince leader his guests to the Red Death.The definition of time in this story is seen in the prize of the "gigantic clock the ebony" i beg your pardon is draped in black color velvet and located in the final room. Return the clock is an object, it conveniently takes ~ above human aspects as the author describes that as having a face and lungs indigenous which comes a sound that is "exceedingly musical" however "so peculiar" the the "dreams room stiff-frozen as they stand," in a short-term rigor mortis the anticipates the final one.The relationship in between the Red Death and time is a an essential to expertise the symbolic meaning of the story. The seven rooms space laid the end from east to west, reminding united state of the food of the sun which procedures our earthly time. These rooms space lighted from without, and also it is only in the seventh room wherein the color of the home windows does not correspond with the color of the room, however instead is "a deep blood color" through which irradiate illuminates the westernmost chamber of black, through an ebony clock top top its west wall. In producing this room, Poe links the color red and also black through death and also time."carlet stains ~ above the body and especially ~ above the challenge of the victim" indicate the presence of the Red Death. Blood, the really substance that life, becomes the mark of fatality as that bursts with the pores. Death, then, is not an outside antagonist, to be feared and walled out together Prince Prospero attempts come do; however instead it is a part of every of us. Its existence is feeling in our imaginations as we become mindful of the manage that time has actually over ours lives. We hear the echoes the the "ebony clocks" that we carry within. Prince Prospero tries to escape fatality by walling that out, and by so doing, create a prison the end of his sanctuary. However, the Prince learns that no one have the right to escape death. Fatality holds "illimitable ascendancy over all." Theme
No one escapes death. Human being happiness (as represented by Prince Prospero) seeks to wall out the danger of death; however, the Biblical recommendation (I Thessalonians 5:2-3) in ~ the end of the story reminds united state that fatality comes "like a thef in the night," and even those who seek "peace and safety...shall not escape."Martha Womack
Related details
Works Cited
Adventures in American Literature. Pegasus Edition. Chicago: Harcourt Brace Jovanvich, Publishers, 1989. "Bubonic Plague and also Cholera." Compton"s interactive Encyclopedia. 1994 edition. Stern, Phillip valve Doren, editor. The Portable Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Penguin Books, 1977. "I Thessalonians." The holy Bible. King James Version. New York: Harper & brothers Publishers, 1957.
