“Masque of the Red Death” By Edgar Allen Poe

Allegory a story in which the characters and events are symbols that stand for ideas about human life or for a political or historical situation the objective of its use is to preach some kind of a moral lesson.

7 Rooms 7 rooms are allegorical arranged from East to West

East / West ? East=the directions associated with “beginnings,” and birth, because the sun rises in the East. West=direction of the sunset. Associated with endings, and death

7 Rooms 1.Blue -birth, suggests the unknown from which a human being comes into the world. 2.Purple – combination of Blue (birth) and Red (associated with life, intensity) suggests the beginning of growth. 3.Green – suggest the “spring” of life (youth) 4.Orange – the summer and autumn of life

7 Rooms 5. White-suggests age, white hair, bones 6. Violet – combination of purple and blue or purple and grey, a shadowy color, represents darkness and death 7. Black - Death

Rooms The revelers (partiers) don’t go into the black room, they fear death The Red Death walks from the blue room to the black room Thus walking the course of life from birth to death Prospero follows the Red Death

Rooms In following the Red Death Prospero and his guest rush into the black room to unmask the Red Death, and die. So, the course the characters walk in the story is both literally and metaphorically the course from life to death

The Clock as a symbol A symbol of death Symbol of the passing of “the time that flies” The inevitability of death The eerie chiming of the clock on the hour is a reminder to the revelers that their lives are drifting away with the time, and that death is approaching

The “Castellated Abbey” Cut off and secluded, hidden away Doors are welded shut from the inside (Gives the story a threatening atmosphere) Symbol of worldly power Standing above the pheasants Represents both the State and the Church

Imagery the formation of mental images, figures, or images likenesses of things, or of such images collectively images pictorial images.images

Imagery examples Masquerade ballroom-everything is too wild, too intense, too frenzied and too “grotesque” Masqueraders- dressed up in bizarre costumes, a truly mad collage of images, Poe uses dream images to describe them Withering dancers Swelling music Giddiness Dizzying scene