Masque of the Red Death

Masque of the Red Death A Visual Aide By Jordan Roysdon

Choose Your Path Carefully… • Major Events • Main Characters • Themes • Symbols • Setting • Mood • Conflict • Resolution • Point of View

Major Events Main Screen Finish Your Journey

Main Characters • Prince Prospero is one of those rulers who doesn’t really care about his subjects. He shut them out when they most needed him and had a grand party with all of his rich friends. He is so full of himself, and Red Death knew it. • Red Death was the cause of the whole story; if not for him, the epidemic would not have ensued and the Prince would not have hidden away in his abbey. Prince Prospero Red Death Main Screen Finish Your Journey

Themes • You can’t escape death. This is the most evident theme of them all; all the symbols can relate to this. • There is a thin line separating the dream world from the real world. Tell me. Did Prince Prospero ever really have a thousand guests? Did Red Death ever really take a physical form? What if Prospero was really mad the whole time? Did he lock himself up and go crazy from the lack of human contact? Remember how the party was described. Doesn’t that seem a bit too crazy and unreal, even for the most amazing party with the richest people? • Fear. Edgar Allen Poe made it clear we are never safe from death, not even in the most remote safe haven. • Don’t take anything for granted. Prospero and his friends tried their best to ignore impending death; they took the fact that they were still alive for granted and wasted their last hours on partying without a care in the world. Main Screen Finish Your Journey

Symbols • Seven colored apartments • These apartments can represent two different things, it depends on how you look at it. The first, more obvious way is the rooms represent the cycle of life. • The second, more dark representation of the rooms is the seven deadly sins. Each sin occurs at some point within the story. Birth Toddler Teen Years Young Adult Middle Age Old Age (second childhood) Death • Gluttony– Instead of using his money to help his dying subjects, Prince Prospero exceedingly fed his thousand friends. • Envy – Prospero is obviously jealous of the power of the uninvited Red Death to infiltrate his safe haven. • Vanity – Prince Prospero believes he is above all – including death. • Lust– Prince Prospero had a strong taste to be the most powerful man alive, the master of death. • Wrath– Prospero becomes very angry when he first discovers the uninvited “mummer’. • Greed– Prince Prospero was extremely selfish – he only cared for the prosperity of his own being. • Sloth– Prince Prospero took the lazy, effortless way when dealing with the Red Death. Next Page of Symbols

Symbols (CONTINUED) • Red Death • Red Death clearly represents death. There’s no sugar coating it; everyone • dies at some point. You’re destined to live one certain life, if death wants to • claim you, you can’t say no. Red Death makes it a point to prove this to all • of the naive partiers who thought they had outsmarted him. Red Death can also • symbolize the end of the world and the final judgment. However, don’t you find • it odd that Poe describes Red Death in an aesthetic way, as if to say that death in • itself is an art? The way the victims died, sprinkled with the blood rather than • drenched in it, it’s so delicate, yet painful. Some would argue that exact statement, • “delicate, yet painful,” describes life to a tee. • Prince Prospero • It’s no secret that “Prospero” represents “Prosperity.” But why does that matter? It ties into the theme – no matter how powerful, wise, or prosperous a person may be, they will never escape death. Aside from his name, the Prince himself can represent how out of touch the upper class was with the lower class. We can assume the party-goers all felt their lives were more important than the dying peasants in the kingdom. Next Page of Symbols

Symbols (CONTINUED) • The Clock • The clock is located in the seventh apartment, so automatically it has something to do with death. Even without that detail, you know it has some significance, for it halts the party every time it chimes on the hour. When midnight rolled around, you realize what the clock truly symbolizes: with every moment that passes, the closer one is to death. It also reinforces the theme; that death is ultimately inevitable. • The Abbey • That’s right – even the setting is a symbol in this story. The abbey sets the threatening atmosphere; it acted as a huge cage. No one could get out, and no one was supposed to get in. It was so separated from the rest of society, Prince Prospero thought his plan to outwit death was fool-proof. The abbey, too, proves that if death is coming, it’s coming. There is no way around it. Main Screen Finish Your Journey

Setting • Time: Edgar Allen Poe paints this eerie story in the midst of an extremely deadly epidemic called “Red Death.” The story specifically takes place during the peak of this plague, while the main character (Prince Prospero) hosts an unimaginably glorious party for his thousand friends. The only hint to what time period the story occurs in his the use of “knights and ladies,” and that doesn’t narrow it down at all; it just points us to the Middle Ages. • Place: Prince Prospero has confined himself along with a thousand of his friends in one of his magnificent castellated abbeys. Main Screen Finish Your Journey

Mood • Fear Whether it be of Red Death or just plain old death itself, Poe invokes fear into his audience from start to finish. • Anticipation From the beginning, we knew someone was going to die. We, as the readers, were anxious to learn of the victim as well as the manner in which they died. • Embarrassment Doesn’t the behavior in the story seem familiar? Yes, it does, because it is exactly how many people today would react to a epidemic. Protecting only people they want to, instead of everyone they can. Not to mention celebrating on the inside while everyone dies on the outside. “Every man for himself,” might as well be the slogan for the human race. Main Screen Finish Your Journey

Conflict • Man vs. Self Prince Prospero obviously had something going on mental wise. He was crazy – maybe even crazy enough to have imagined the whole thing. • Man vs. Society Prospero put himself against all of his people in the kingdom. Just imagine if there were survivors; what would happen to Prospero when he attempted to resume his rule over the people he had abandoned? • Man vs. Man Assuming that Red Death wasn’t a figment of Prince Prospero’s delusional mind, Prospero as well as his subjects attempted to kill death in its physical form. • Man vs. Nature Prospero had a very dramatic showdown with the aspect of death, a natural occurring event. He wanted to pretend he was immortal. Main Screen Finish Your Journey

Resolution The only way there is a real resolution to the story is if you cast the characters in a new light; Red Death as the protagonist and Prince Prospero as the antagonist. If you look at it this way, Red Death succeeded in taking down the greedy and maniacal Prince that abandoned his hopeless subjects. Main Screen Finish Your Journey

Point of View The Point of View in Edgar Allen Poe’s Masque of the Red Death is more complicated than most works. At the beginning, clearly it’s third person; all- knowing and unattached. Then the narrator says, “But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held.” That statement, along with a few others throughout the work, would suggest first person. The only character in the story that could know the details so well would be Prince Prospero himself, but he dies before the story is complete. However, it’s remains possible that this story was the last account of the dream world Prince Prospero believed in; the way he had imagined death claiming him right before it did. Main Screen Finish Your Journey

Now You Know the truth…

Just remember….

You are never safe from death.

The Masque of the Red Death

Masque of the Red Death