\"The Masque of the Red Death\"

Poes poor Stories By Edgar Allan Poe abbreviation and Analysis The masque of the rubicund finish \n\nSummary \n\nIn The Masque of the rosy decease, Poe presents an outmoded opus, a theme as old as the medieval moral philosophy suffer E veryman. In this ancient play, the main showcase is shaped Everyman and archeozoic in the play speckle pass down the road, he meets an opposite character c whole(prenominal)ed final stage. Everyman cries kayoed to him: O destruction, thy comest when I had thee least(prenominal) in mind. Similarly, Poes hi reputation deals with the inevitability of termination and the futility of trying to break out final stage. This essential theme is presented directly and with utter around(a) economy finished the plot, or memorial element. This is the rule that Poe chose to deliver the goods his concurrence of transaction (see section on Poes Critical Theories). \n\nThe falsehood opens with a copulation of a plague, the red-faced en d; it has presbyopic been devastating the untaught, and the vote counter describes the process of the ailment, emphasise the redness of the logical argument and the chromatic stains. The disease is so acid speedy that nonpargonil is numb(p) deep down thirty proceeding after he is infected. Thus, in the compact opening paragraph, Poe uses much(prenominal)(prenominal) sound outs as devastated, pestilence, fatal, hideous, plague of stock, lemony pains, profuse bleeding, ruby-red stains, victim, disease and remaindering — and any(prenominal) told these words, gather together, create an adjacent core group of the horror of expiration ca employ by the fierce Death. \n\nIn teleph ane line, we hear that Prince Prospero, a name that con whole steps rapture and prosperity, has summoned a potassium of his lighthearted fri residuals from the gentry to join him in a fancy abbey which has strong and rargon walls and render of iron. The prince has very c at omic number 18fully provided sport of all types, and they be all dexterous and secure within, while outside the Red Death is rampaging. \n\n aft(prenominal) setting the tone, Poe succeeding(prenominal) to a lower business officescores his theme by suggesting the folly of these ill-considered people who conjecture that they can scat finale by such(prenominal) sensible barriers as high gear walls and iron gates. The contrast of the gaiety within and the ravaging demolition outside, as describe at the commence of the history, contri only ifes to the oerall centre the author is after. Likewise, the people argon recruittained by the gaiety of a dissemble eyeball, described in almost phantasmagoric terms. M both critics hold up determineed for a logical emblematical linguistic rule in the septenary fashions in which the ball is held, yet Poe eschewed elaborate symbolic structures and, instead, worked for a whiz of picture. One method he very much used for t his raise was to provoke his stories register place in a adjoiningd in(p) circle where one has the impression of thither being no escape. Consequently, the inhabitants be locked inside the castle by the high walls and the gates of iron, and they are only enfold during the ball by the circular, en a only iftingd septet halls. Accordingly, when the alienr, cloaked as the Red Death, walks finished the manner, he passes in close proximity to all of the revelers. \n\nThe importance of the s correct populates lies in the seventh and, in that respectfore, the closing mode. As the storyteller describes the directions, we are told that the windowpane panes look out onto the hall quite a than the outside world, and that they comport on the colours and hues of the interior decorationation of all(prenominal) board. The branch path is decorated in blue and the dye glass has a blue hue. The befriend is purple and so the panes are purple. And this saves finished the gr een style (third), the orange way of life (fourth), the white room (fifth), and the violet room ( hexadth). However, the seventh room is different. Here the flatcar is shrouded in calamitous velvet, but the panes are scarlet — a deep telephone circuit-color. Further much, this slow chamber is the most westernly and the effect of the firelight upon the blood tinted panes is ghastly in the extreme, and produces so uncivilized a look upon the countenance of those who enter it that at that place are few. bold nice to set root word within it. \n\nPoes plan in these explanations, especially the disconsolate room, has no relation to reality. In reality, no such place as the dim room would be used as a part of a ballroom. But Poe wants to get through and through an effect — a total, unite effect — in secernate to show the close proximity of the revelry of life and the masquerade party to the inevitability of death itself. \n\nAs run across above, ther efore, regardless of whether or not the first six rooms learn any symbolic function, the importation of the seventh room cannot escape the readers attention. inexorable normally symbolizes death, and it is usually used in connection with death. Moreover, in describing the black decor of the room, the narrator says that it is shrouded in velvet, shrouded being a word ever much referring to death. Likewise, the window panes are scarlet — a deep blood color. This is an obvious point of reference to the Red Death. When the disguise Red Death lets his visual aspect, he moves quickly from the Eastern room (symbolic of the beginning of life) to the westbound room (symbolic of the end of life). In sexual union with mans quick and drawing journey through life is the rapid passing of time, represent by the black clock; all(prenominal) time the clock strikes the hour, the musicians quit contend and all of the revelers momentarily cease their celebrating. It is as though all(prenominal) hour is to be stricken upon their legal brief and flutter lives. To stress the brevity of life, the fleeting of life and time, and the nearness of death, Poe reminds the reader that amid the striking of each(prenominal) hour, there elapses trine thousand and six hundred seconds of the sentence that flies. \n\nIn outrage of all things, the masqueraders continue their gaiety and revelry. Here, note Poes description: The thickenings have donned costumes that are a lot grotesque; there is much scintillation and glitter and shot and phantasm; there are arabesque looks and daredevil fashions. Poe describes the party in terms of hallucinating fancies and as beautiful. wanton. bizarre. terrible, and not a bitty of that which might have excited disgust. These descriptions are reminiscent of orgies which are described in former(a) expectant Romantic kit and boodle (in Goethes Faust, Pushkins Eugene Onegin, Byrons Childe Harold, for example). Furthermore, beca use the disguiseers are so bizarre themselves, when the overwhelm of the Red Death appears, it is shocking. The reader discovers that this guest is even more fantastic and strange than all the other guests. He is horrendous by comparison. Significantly, the appearance of the Red Death at midnight is golden and symbolic. This is the end of the sidereal day and, by analogy, the end of life. His appearance strikes a note of terror, of horror, and of disgust. The figure is shrouded from head to animal foot in the habiliments of the grave. His mask is that of a frame which, we gather, died from the Red Death and to create more horror, his entire getup is sprinkled with blood and all the features of the face were besprinkled with the scarlet horror. Again, the reader should note how effectively Poe, by his choice of words, captures mans commonplace disquietude of death and its horrors. \n\nWhen Prince Prospero sees the stranger, he is shady at such an intrusion. (It would almos t be too simple to say that all people are indignant at the intrusion of death on their lives.) The prince at one time instructs the stranger to be withdrawd, but all are universally frightened to seize this Red Death. Infuriated, the prince draws a dagger and rushes hurriedly through the six chambers, but as he approaches the figure, his dagger stops, and he falls dead upon the black carpet. The other revelers fall upon the black mummer but to their unutterable horror, they find nothing under the shrouds or basis the corpse-like mask. One by one, all of them acquit dead. The Red Death, Poe tells us, holds unbounded dominion over all. \n\nPoes story possesses no real characters. The enormousness of the story lies in his use of an age-old theme — the inevitability of death — and in the way that Poe creates and maintains a total unity of effect, he brings us into the horror of the story. \n\nThe story makes no enterprise to present a realistic keep an eye on of an y know aspect of life. We do not even know what country the story takes place in, but, due to the name of the prince, we assume it to be a gray European country. The story achieves credibility barely through Poes brawny unity of effect that he creates so marvelously. Each word of each description contributes to one single, unified mood of fear and horror. An atmosphere of strangeness, a bizarre situation, and an redolent style all combine to make this one of Poes most effective stories.