Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Masque of The Red Death was a short gothic story written by Edgar Allan Poe that was published in 1842. The story is an allegory about man’s futile efforts to avoid death, which is inevitable. The story may also be read as a satire against the Aristocratic class during the period of the Bubonic Plague or Black Death in England and other parts of Europe. The story is about a fictional tyrannical prince who is indifferent to the turmoil and sufferings of the weak peasantry class while his state is suffering an endemic which is commonly known as the Red Death. It is a fictitious disease, an allegorical representation of the Black Death. Historically, feudalism was prevalent when the actual Bubonic Plague devastated Europe in the fourteenth century. The Read Death, on the other hand, may also represent the egalitarian idea, the death of feudalism as it embodies a kind of economic equality and doesn’t discriminate its victims based on their economic class, it kills all.
Summary of The Masque of Red Death:
In a fictional country, the Red Death is spreading its wings. The Red Death is a bloody disease that causes the death of the patient rapidly with a seizure, sharp pain, dizziness, and bleeding from the pores. While the common public is dying in huge numbers, the ruler, Prince Prospero doesn’t care about them. However, he is worried about his own health and thus, he decides to gather all his friends, knights, and relatives and shuts himself in a safe heaven ornated with all amenities and facilities. His motive is to keep the Red Death away from his safe haven and close circle and to do so, he uses all his wealth and might. The Read Death appears to be a great challenge to his autonomy. Yet, while Red Death easily preys on the lower-class peasants, Prospero’s prosperity is unaffected by this natural calamity. Being shut and safe in the walled abbey with other 1000 nobles, Prince Prospero intends to await the end of the plague in luxury and safety behind the walls of their secure refuge, having welded the doors shut to ensure no one enters or leaves. Prospero’s castle is fabulous he designed it himself.
A few months pass by but the Red Death doesn’t slow down, rather it reaches a new peak as more and more common people die. However, Prospero remains unaffected. He decides to throw a party, a fancy masquerade ball throughout the imperial suit of the castle which has seven rooms. Prospero suggests that all the invites should masque themselves in ghouls and ghosts masks. Prospero has designed these rooms running from east to west. The first room is decorated in blue and the stained glass of the window has a blue hue. The second is purple and so "the panes are purple." And this continues through the green room (third), the orange room (fourth), the white room (fifth), and the violet room (sixth). These windows in the rooms don’t open outside, rather, one can look out onto the hall through these windows. The seventh room is different. It is at the corner of the west. It is completely black but the window panes are not black, they are shrouded in deep blood-red scarlet color. In the whole suite, there are no lights of any kind, but in the corridors that lay behind the windows of the suite, fires blaze. Shapes dance around the walls from the patterns of the flames. The black room with blood-red scarlet color windows appears so gruesome and the strange shapes of the dancing flames make it much more fearsome. There are very few of the nobles who are bold enough to set foot in the seventh room.
Prospero has ornated this black room with an extraordinarily giant clock, which, every hour, strikes with a deep, clear note of very strange pitch. Hardly anyone dares to go to the westernmost corner, to the black room. All the other rooms are magnificently beautiful. The sound of the clock appears merrier and cherishable from the other rooms but it becomes extreme in the black room. With each strike of the hour, the sound of the clock sends the merrymaking masqueraders into a strange reverie.
All the guests are masked and nobody can recognize others. While the nobles in their masks continue enjoying the party in different rooms of different colors, nobody dares to enter the black room.
The party continues throughout the day until midnight when the giant clock strikes. The shrieking sound of the giant clock stops the music and everyone faces the strange reverie again. Suddenly twelve different chimes start producing strange sounds and as the sound stops, everyone in the blue room feels that someone entered the suit from outside. This new entrant is also masked and he is dressed more ghoulishly than all others. His mask looks like the face of a corpse, his garments resemble a funeral shroud, and his face reveals spots of blood suggesting that he is a victim of the Red Death. The rumor of this strange intruder spreads through all six rooms. That time, Prospero was in the blue room. While everyone is fearful of this new entrant, Prospero gets angry. He wonders how someone of his friends and knights with so little humor and levity would join his party in such a dress and mask that reminds them of the Red Death. The intruder is completely masked, from head to foot, as if dressed for the grave and his dress is stained with scarlet. Everyone is so afraid of him that when this intruder starts walking slowly, nobody dares to stop him and question him. Prospero shouts angrily and orders the intruder to be uncovered and hung from the battlements. Everyone hears Prospero’s order throughout the seven rooms. The knights and nobles decide to confront him but nobody dares to seize him and thus, the intruder continues to walk through the room straight upto the prince, sees him, and then goes past him to the other rooms in the west.
Prospero decides to encounter this intruder himself and goes behind him but the intruder continues to walk forward towards the west. Prospero finally catches up to the new guest in the black room with scarlet windowpanes. The masked intruder suddenly turns around and looks into the eyes of Prospero and he dies. The other nobles see Prospero falling on the floor. They gather courage and enter the room to attack the cloaked man, they find that there is nobody beneath the costume. The Red Death captures each dancer, one by one, the clock stops and the lights go out, and the Red Death finally rules over the whole realm.
Analysis of The Red Death:
The symptoms of the disease (Red Death) appear similar to bubonic plague and Europe was feudalistic during the 14th century when Black Death caused havoc. The seven rooms that Prospero designed for the masquerade were directed from east to west. While the first room was blue colored with blue windowpanes, the last room was black colored with scarlet windowpanes. The setting suggests the cycle of a day. The sun rises in the east and the sky appears blue. The sun sets in the west and everything goes dark, becoming black.
While the Red Death continues to kill hundreds of ordinary people, the happy-go-lucky folly of Prospero's court, foolishly believes they can ignore it. Instead of helping their people find a way, they decide to seclude themselves from the ordinary peasants. Despite his might, health, and wealth, Prospero fails to stand against the Red Death even for a minute. Against the Red Death, he proves to be equally vulnerable as any ordinary citizen. The central theme of the story is mortality. Prospero and all the nobles try to ignore and escape death, preferring to stay focused on living life to its fullest. But mortality can't be avoided, as they are reminded when Red Death literally crashes their party.
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