1. Allegory and Symbols
1. Party guests
What it represents: They represent humanity/ human beings.
How it helps teach the lesson:
Although the party guests isolate themselves, they still die from the Red Death, thus showing no one can escape death.

2. Dreams – the figures in each room
What do they represent?
Repressed desires and fears
How they help teach the lesson?
They are there to entertain the revelers, but they are Poe’s way of making the reader understand that all of the trappings of the party are just too unrealistic.

3. Prince Prospero’s abbey
What it represents: the abbey is a physical barrier to the disease, an escape from the disease
How it helps teach the lesson: Even though Prince Prospero thinks he can build a castle strong enough to keep death out, death still penetrates the castle walls.

4. Room colors/stages of life
Blue – birth
Purple – beginning of youth
Green – youth
Orange – adulthood
White – midlife
Violet – elderly
Black – death
Red – blood/fear

5. Allegory and Symbols
3. The black room
What it represents: It represents the grave, a coffin, forebodes of death (the red symbolizes blood)
How it helps teach the lesson: It shows that death is the final resting place for all.

6. Allegory and Symbol
4. The tripods with the flames:
What is represents: They represent light, heat, life.
How it helps teach the lesson:
Like the party goers, the tripods are snuffed out at the end by death.

7. “The Masque of Red Death” Analyzing Literature Worksheet Understanding Allegory
5. The masked visitor/uninvited guest
What it represents: It represents the Red Death, plague, death in general
How it helps teach the lesson(develops the theme): It shows us that we cannot escape death, no matter how hard we try. Death will come looking for us

8. Allegory and Symbols
6. Ebony clock
What it represents: The clock represents our time on earth.
How it helps teach the lesson: The chimes are a constant reminder of the time we have left on earth. Time is still ticking onwards (like the beating of a heart).

9. 7. The seven rooms What it represents: The stages of life
How it helps teach the lesson: The rooms begin in the east and end in the west. The seventh room represents death. No matter where our journey begins, it will always end with death.
1st room= blue 3rd=green 5th=white
2nd=purple 4th= orange 6th=violet
7th=black and red

10. 8. Prince Prospero
What it represents: The wealthy / privileged people /upper class How it helps teach the lesson: The wealthy think they can avoid suffering/death or think they are above the powers of mortality, but they are not.

11. 9. Masquerade ball
What it represents: An attempt to have fun/ avoid unpleasant things by pretending everything is okay.
How it helps teach the lesson: People have a hard time facing their mortality or a serious problem, so they simply ignore it.

12. Allegory and Symbol
3. The music
What is represents: It represents life or the tempo of life .
How it helps teach the lesson:
It gives us a sense of vulnerability; each time it is stilled by the chiming of the clock, we recognize life is fleeting.