Masque Of Red Death Essay, Research Paper
The Masque of Red Death: The Masque of Poe
People don’t really have that much in common, but they do have one
big thing in common, that is death. Death is the one thing that no one can
stop. The short story “The Masque of Red Death,” by Edger Allen Poe shows
how that statement is true. Poe was a man who had had many experiences
with a disease that killed many people in his life, in his story “The
Masque of Red Death,” he uses a lot of symbolic messages to express his
views and feelings on that disease.
Edger Allan Poe stated out with a home life that wasn’t very stable.
His blood father left when Poe was about one. His mother was an actress
that moved Poe’s sister, brother , and himself around a lot. Then when he
was three she died of tuberculoses. After his mothers death Poe was
separated from his sister and brother.
Poe was sent to the Allen family. Then when Poe was in his early
twenties Mrs. Allen also died of tuberculoses. At the age of twenty-six
Poe married his cousin Virginia. She later died of tuberculoses. His
brother died of tuberculoses also.
In “The Masque of Red Death,” Poe uses color as a symbol. He used
the colors red, blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and black. In
the story red stand for the death that comes over everyone in the story.
In Poe’s life it stands for the diseases that has killed everyone important
to him, tuberculoses. Blue is the c
it is supposed to be him. The second room in the story is the color purple,
this color is for Poe’s mother. Then there is a green room, this room is
for his brother. There was also an orange room for Poe’s foster mother,
Mrs. Allan. The white room was for his wife Virginia, and the violet room
for her death. Last there was the black room, which was for Poe’s death.
What is time? Is time something that people just made up ? Poe
seems to think that it means life. In the story a clock symbolizes life.
In the story every time the clock would time the hour the party would stop,
because everyone wanted to make sure that there time was not yet over.
Another thing that Poe uses to show life is east and west. He had all the
rooms start in the east and end in the west. When you where in the east
you were very much alive and the closer you got to the west the closer to
death you were until you finally got to the west where you would die when
you reached it.
One more thing is the Prince, in the story the Prince tries to save
everyone, but in the end they all died. This is much like Poe, Poe tried
to protect everyone so much but they still all died. The last thing is
that the party the Prince was having was a masquerade. Which is just like
life according to Poe. He was saying that everyone is always wearing a
mask through life, but that we really shouldn’t, because we are all have
the same fait, death!