One significant symbol in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" is the seven rooms of Prospero's palace. Each room is painted in a different color, representing the stages of life and the passage of time. The progression from blue to purple, green, yellow, white, and violet reflects the journey from birth to death, culminating in the final black room with the red windows, which symbolizes the inescapable nature of death and the horror of the Red Death itself. Prospero's attempt to control the situation by isolating himself and his guests within these rooms symbolizes humanity's futile efforts to escape death and disease. The clock in the black room emphasizes this theme of time and mortality, as it tolls ominously, reminding the revelers of their inevitable fate. Ultimately, the seven rooms serve to illustrate the idea that no matter how much one tries to avoid it, death is an inescapable reality that eventually claims everyone, reinforcing the story's message about the inevitability of death and the arrogance of those who believe they can outwit it.
The Red deaTh had long been feeding on The counTRy. no sickness had ever been so deadly — so great a killer — or so fearful to see. Blood was its mark — the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and a sudden feel ing that the mind was rushing in circles inside the head. Then there was bleeding through the skin, though it was not cut or broken — and then, death! The bright red spots upon the body and especially upon the face of the sick man made other men turn away from him, afraid to try to help. And the sick ness lasted, from the beginning to the end, no more than half an hour.
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Edgar Allan Poe
But Prospero, the ruler of that land, was happy and strong and wise. When half the people of his land had died, he called to him a thousand healthy, happy friends, and with them went far away to live in one of his palaces. This was a large and beautiful stone building he had planned himself. A strong, high wall circled it. This wall had gates
of iron. The gentlemen, after they had entered, brought fire to heat the iron of the gates to make them close so firmly that nobody could open them. Here they could forget the sickness, the Red Death. They would leave the outside world to care for itself.
Prospero had supplied everything they needed for pleasure. There was music, there was dancing, there was beauty, there was food to eat and wine to drink. All these were within the wall, and within the wall they would be safe. Outside the wall walked the Red Death.
It was near the end of their fifth month there that Pros pero asked his friends all to come together for a dancing party, a masquerade. Everyone was asked to come dressed in fine clothes and with his eyes, or perhaps his whole face, covered by a cloth mask.
It was a scene of great richness, that masquerade. There were seven rooms in which Prospero’s friends danced. In many old palaces the doors can be opened in such a way that rooms like these seven can be seen all at the same time. In this palace it was different. Little more than one of them could be seen at one time. There was a turn every twenty or thirty yards. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, was a tall pointed window. The windows were of colored glass, of the same color that was used in each room. The first room had blue cloth hangings on the walls — and blue were its windows. The second room had wall hangings of that blue-red known as purple, and here the windows were purple. The third was green, and so was the glass of the windows. The fourth had hangings and windows of yellow — the fifth of white — the sixth of violet. But the seventh room had hangings on the walls made of a rich soft cloth which was black, black as night, and the floor, too, was covered with the same heavy black cloth. In this room the color of the windows was not the same. It was red — a deep blood color.
All the rooms were lighted through the outside windows. The resulting light was strange indeed, as it colored the shapes of the dancers. But the light that fell on the black hangings through the
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Edgar Allan Poe: Storyteller
blood-colored glass was the most fearful of them all. It produced so wild a look on the faces of those who entered that there were few of the dancers who dared to step within those dark walls.
In this room stood a great clock of black wood. Gently it marked the seconds as they passed; and when it was time to mark the hour the clock spoke with a loud, clear voice, a deep tone as beautiful as music, but so strange that the music and the dancing stopped and the dancers stood still to listen. And then, after another sixty minutes, after another three thousand and six hundred seconds of Time, of flying Time, the clock struck again, and the dancers stopped as before.
Nevertheless, it was a happy
and beautiful masquerade. And
you may be sure that the clothes
the dancers chose to wear, their
costumes, were strange and won
derful. The dancers looked like
the forms we might see in trou
bled dreams. And these — the
dreams — danced softly through
the rooms, taking the color of the
rooms as they moved. It did not
seem that their steps followed the
music, but that the music rose
from their steps. But into the sev
enth room the dancers do not go,
for the red light coming through
the windows, and the black ness
of the wall hangings, make them
afraid — and he who enters hears
more deeply the striking of the
great black clock.
But the other rooms are crowded, and in them beats hotly the heart of life. And the dance goes on until at last the clock begins to strike twelve. Again the music stopped. Again the dancers stood with out moving while the slow striking sound continued. Before the clock was quiet again, many in the crowd saw that in the first room, the blue room, there was a masquerader who had not been seen before. As
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Edgar Allan Poe
they talked softly to each other about him a feeling of surprise spread through all the dancers, then a feeling of fear and of sickening horror. In such a group as this, only a very strange masquerader could have caused such a feeling. Even among those who laugh at both life and death, some matters cannot be laughed at. Everyone seemed now deeply to feel that the stranger should not have been allowed to come among them dressed in such clothes. He was tall and very thin, and covered from head to foot like a dead man prepared for the grave. The mask which covered his face — or was it really a mask? — the mask which covered his face was so much like the face of a dead man that the nearest eye could not see the difference. And yet all this might have been acceptable — but the mas querader whom nobody knew had made himself look like the Red Death itself! His clothes were spotted with blood. And the mask over his face was covered with the terrible red spots…or perhaps it was indeed his face!
When Prospero looked upon this fearful form he was first filled with terror — and then with anger. “Who dares?” he cried. “Take him! Seize him! Pull off his mask so that we may know who we must hang at sunrise!”
Prospero stood in the blue room when he spoke these words. They sounded through the seven rooms, loud and clear. At first, as he spoke, some of the dancers started to rush toward the strange masquerader. But they stopped, afraid, and no one dared to put out a hand to touch him. The stranger started to walk toward the second room. He passed within a few feet of Prospero, who stood still, surprised. And while the dancers moved back from the center of the room, the stranger moved quietly, without being stopped, with a slow and measured step, through the blue room to the purple room — through the purple room to the green room — through the green to the yellow — through this to the white — and then to the violet room.
As the stranger was entering the seventh room, Prospero sud denly and angrily rushed through the six rooms. No one dared to follow him. He held a sharp knife high over his head, ready to strike the stranger. When he was within three or four feet of the strange masquerader, the stranger turned and stood silent, looking firmly into Prospero’s eyes. There was a cry — and the knife dropped shining upon the black floor, upon which a minute later Prospero himself fell,
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Edgar Allan Poe: Storyteller
dead. The dancers then rushed into the black room. The strongest of the men tried to hold the masquerader, whose tall form stood beside the black clock; but when they put their hands on him they found inside the grave-clothes no human form, no body — nothing!
Now they knew that it was the Red Death itself that had come in the night. One by one the dancers fell, and each died as he fell. And the fires died. And the clock stopped. And darkness and decay and the Red Death ruled forever over all.
Write a paragraph describing in detail one symbol used in the story and what meaning the author is trying to convey by using this in the story.
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3 answers
In "The Masque of the Red Death," the seven rooms in Prospero's palace symbolize the stages of life. Each room is a different color, starting with blue and ending with black, which represents life moving towards death. The black room, with its red windows, is especially important because it shows the danger of the Red Death. Prospero and his guests try to hide from the disease by locking themselves inside, but this symbolizes the way people often try to escape death. The clock in the black room serves as a reminder that time is running out and that everyone must eventually face death, no matter how hard they try to avoid it.
1 answer