The Masque of the Red Death Summary & Complete Analysis

Background of the Story

“The Masque of the Red Death” was published in 1842 by an American writer Edger Allan Poe. The story is an account of Prince Prospero, who tries to avoid the dangerous plague, the Red Death, to hit his abbey. Along with many other nobles, he hosts a masquerade ball in seven differently decorated rooms. In the middle of the party, a mysterious figure enters the party in a disguise of the victim of Red Death visits each of the rooms. After confronting the stranger, Prosper dies, and the guests also die.

The short stories of Edgar Allan Poe are written in the tradition of Gothic fiction. These stories are often analyzed as an allegory that shows the inevitability of death. Various interpretations of the story have been presented by critics and readers. The readers attempt to find the true nature of the disease.

Initially, the story was published in Graham’s Magazine in May 1842. Since then, the story has been adapted in many different forms, including a film in 1964. This story has been eluded by many other literary works.

The story “The Masque of the Red Death” has been directly influenced by The Castle of Otranto, a Gothic novel by Horace Walpole. In the story, Poe employed many traditional elements of Gothic fiction that also include the castle setting. The many single-toned rooms of the castle symbolize the human mind and show different types of personalities.

In the short story, there is an imagery of blood and time which shows the corporeality. The plague symbolizes the typical characteristics of human life and death, which makes the story an allegory of man’s useless attempt to prevent death. There are many disputes over the interpretation of the short story. Some assume the story should not be interpreted as an allegory, as it will make it didactic. Poe has a distaste for morality, and if there is any moral lesson in the story, it has not been explicitly stated.

The Masque of the Red Death Summary

The story opens with the account of the plague in a fictional country. A disease named Red Death plagues the whole country. The victims of the disease quickly die in a horrible state. Even though the disease is quickly spreading in the country, Prince Prosper does not appear to be worried about it. He orders to lock the gates of the palace so no disease could enter the palace, and ignores that his people are dying of the disease.

After some months, Prince Prospero throws a masquerade party along with some other wealthy aristocrats. For the party, he decorates the seven rooms of his palace in seven different colors. He decorates the easternmost room in blue with blue windows. The other room is decorated in purple color with purple windows. Moving towards the westward, the rooms are decorated in the color order are green, orange, white, and violet.

The seventh room is painted in black with red windows. In this room, there is an ebony clock. The clock rings each, and the sound of the clock is so loud and distracting that everyone stops talking; even the orchestra stops playing. They appear to be so beautiful and filled with dreams when the clock is not ringing. Most of the guests avoid going into the black-and-red room as it contains the clock and has an ominous atmosphere.

A new guest appears at midnight. He is dressed more chillingly and darkly than the other. His mask appears to be a face of the corpse and wears a garment resembling the funeral shroud. His face has spots of blood that suggests that he has been a victim of Red Death. The sight of the new guest makes Prospero angry. He is amused about how someone can join the party with such low humor and levity.

However, the other guests are so afraid of the masked man and cannot prevent him from going into the rooms. Prosper, eventually, catches the guest in the black-and-red room. Prosper dies as soon as he meets/confronts the figure. When other people at the party go inside the room to attack the masked man, they find that there is nobody in the costume. Everyone at the party dies and the Red Death has crept into the castle. There is a victory of “Darkness and Decay and the Red Death.”

Characters Analysis

Prince Prospero

Prince Prospero is a wealthy aristocrat. He tries to prevent the Red Death by locking the gates of the palace. However, he ultimately becomes the victim of the Red Death. Prospero’s wealth and riches turn out to be insufficient against the natural cycle of life and death.

The kingdom of Prince Prosper is devastated by the plague that results in the loss of the population. Instead of helping and supporting his people in such a difficult time, Prince Prospero locks himself in his palace to hide from the problems. He let the external world take care of itself.

He sends a special invitation to the nobleman and ladies to avoid the disease and have a party in his palace. His subjects are dying of illness and hunger while the elite class is throwing parties behind the walls of the palace. When the last guest arrives, he shuts the door of the palace so as to protect himself. The party ends in a tragedy when an unnamed and uninvited guest arrives and kills all the people.

Prosper’s character is in conflict when he decides that he has nothing to do with the world outside. He puts himself at odds with society to avoid death. He behaves unethically by thinking that he is above his subject and does not want to die like them. Prospero does not appear to be a poor Prince; he is also an indecent human. The ultimate focus of the king is survival. He tries to assure his survival through any means.

Nature appears to respond to the ignorance of the prince and send death for him. He and his companions in the palace think that they are above death; however, death manages to find them.

Mysterious guest

The mysterious guest that arrives at the end of the party is the embodiment of the Red Death. He is dressed more chillingly and darkly than the other. His mask appears to be a face of the corpse and wears a garment resembling the funeral shroud. His face has spots of blood that suggests that he has been a victim of Red Death.

This mysterious guest brings death for the people who shut their eyes on the miseries of other people and deny their own death.

Themes

Death as Natural and Inevitable

In the short story “The Masque of the Red Death,” the image of the Red Death is used to cast horror in the story and shows death as a villain. However, death is also shown as a natural and inevitable part of life. The Red Death is connected to life by blood as blood is the vital component of the body and the Avatar of the disease. It is impossible for life to exist without blood.

The connection between life and death is emphasized by the arrival of death at midnight. Since midnight ends the previous day, it also starts the new day. Death is also the end of physical life and the beginning of spiritual life after death. Death not only has “illimitable dominion,” it is natural as well, and nobody can avoid it no matter how much one tries to avoid it.

The Red Death as a Moral Decay

The privileged class of people is shown in the story in the character of Prince Prospero and his friends. Such people try to avoid plague/death by using money. However, the true nature of the disease is not mentioned in the story. Blood is mentioned, and the “Avatar and seal” of the Red Death. This statement carries a dual meaning. The blood can be taken in a literal sense of it can be a reference to the bloodlines.

In the short story, the abandonment of the poor common people and living a hedonistic lifestyle makes the nobility immoral. The ending of the story can be taken as a sort of divine judgment. And the gruesome demise of Prospero and his friends can be attributed to their arrogance.

Safety is an Illusion

The mansions or palaces in which Prospero and his friends live is isolated from the common community and does not contain any reminder of the death or Red Death. The people dwelling in these palaces are sounded by distractions like parties and wine. They try to forget about their problems and other problems through these distractions.

Such a description of the time highlights that Prospero and his friends believe that they have escaped death. They allow themselves to be less attentive to the passage of time. However, the black-and-red room and the ebony clock shows the fragility of this illusion. Both of these things intrude on the world of fantasy in which Prospero and his friends have created for themselves.

The ebony clock functions as a reminder that they are constantly pushed towards death; even the black room is a symbol of death. Moreover, the aggressive reaction of the people to the masked figures shows how far they can go hide from death and preserve their illusion.

Mortality

As shown by the title, the short story “The Masque of the Red Death” is about death. Everywhere in the story, we see that there is death. The story opens with the description of the Red Death and closes with the dominance of death. The story is filled with images and symbols of death, which consistently reminds the characters and reads that death cannot be avoided.

The characters struggle to avoid death by ignoring and escaping. They preferred to focus on living life at its fullest. However, it is not possible to avoid mortality. They are reminded of the death when the Red Death crashes the party.

Versions of Reality

The setting and atmosphere described by Edgar Allan Poe in the short story “The Masque of the Red Death” appears to be dreamlike rather than real. There is no small part of the dreamlike vision; the readers are constantly drawn towards the imaginary world of Prince Prosper as the story progresses.

Prince Prospero is an unconventional artistic figure. He appears to be mad as everything in the throws in the masquerade ball bears the mark of his artistic genius. The ball is held in the seven elaborated colored room in a writhing, whirling, costumed masquerades. Everything in the party appears to be imagined and fantastic, just like a dream or world of art that has spun out of control.

In this world, like the world of dream and art, everything has a symbolic meaning. It is impossible to figure out what is real and what is imaginary in this world – the product of the half-mad mind of Prospero. Moreover, there is an overlap of the imagination of Poe and the imagination of Prospero.

Fear

The main purpose of writing the short story “The Masque of the Red Death” is to create dread and fear in the hearts of readers. The story starts with the description of the dreadful disease and then builds straight to the dark climax of the story.

In the fantastic world of the story, there is nothing that makes the readers feel home. There is no source of comfort and stability. Everything is dreadful and horrifying. The fear of the readers is reflected in fear of the guests of the masquerade party towards their death and the things that remind them of their death. The fears of the characters are built in a noticeable manner. Their fear starts as a nervous discomfort to an “unutterable horror” at the climax of the story.

Foolishness and Folly

The main character of the story, Prince Prospero, lives his life mainly for pleasure, and so as his friends. They only believe in enjoying life and not to think and grieve about the poor lives of people dying from the plague. They do not give time to ponder on death. And when the plague hits the country, they lock themselves in their palaces and start partying with alcohol and buffoons. Poe creates his horrifying story by contrasting the happy-go-lucky court of the Prospero, who believes that they can easily avoid death and the looming presence of death.

Literary Analysis

Poe’s short story “The Masque of the Red Death” is an allegory and features a set of recognizable imagery and symbols. When combined together, the symbols and imagery convey a message. An allegorical story always has two layers of meaning: the literal or the surface meaning and the symbolic meaning, which also involves complex philosophical concepts.

Considering “the Masque of the Red Death” as an allegory of life and death and the helplessness of humans to avoid death, the Red Death is the symbol of both literal and allegorical death. The story illustrates the idea that no matter how large and beautiful the castle is, how much luxurious food and clothing you have, humans are mortal, and every mortal has to die one day, whether you are a prince of an ordinary human being.

Considering the story in another sense, the story intends to punish the arrogant beliefs of Proper that he can utilize his wealth to avoid death, a natural and tragic process of life. This arrogance combines with his insensitivity to the problems and plight of poor countrymen. Even though he has the wealth to help the poor people, he uses wealth to protect himself. His self-indulgence to give a masquerade party shows him like a caged animal that has no possibility of escape.

The rooms of Prospero’s palace are situated in series symbolizing the stages of life. By arranging the room from east to west, Poe tries to make a point. This progression symbolically represents the life cycle of the day as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Moreover, the night in the story symbolizes death.

The progression of Prospero and his guests from east to west symbolizes the progression of humans from birth to death. The Last room in the palace is crafted in such a way that the guest fears it just like they fear death. Moreover, the ebony clock that is presided over the room is a constant reminder of the final judgment of death. The bell rings hourly and reminds the guest of passing the time.

In many stories of Edgar Allan Poe, the naming of characters and things contributes to assign symbolic meaning to the context of the story. Such naming also suggests another allegorical interpretation. For example, the name of Prince Prosper suggests financial prosperity. However, he exploits his own wealth to avoid the Red Death. The way he tries to protect his palace from destruction suggests the economic system that is doomed to fail forever.

Poe also portrays the hierarchical relationship between the peasantry and Prospero. He shows how unfair the feudal system is. He also points out the lavish lifestyle of the aristocracy and the suffering of the poor. The way Poe uses the feudal imagery in the story is historically accurate. When the actual Bubonic plague overwhelmed Europe in the fourteenth century, the feudal system was at its peak. The disease the Red Death shows radical egalitarianism as it attacks both poor and rich. The same is the case with the present-day coronavirus.

Along with the color red, blood serves to have a dual symbolism. It represents both life and death. This symbol is emphasized by the masked figure. The masked figure does not explicitly state that he is the Red Death; however, he is the only partygoer in the costume of Red Death. The Mask figure makes his initial appearance in the easternmost room, which is then painted in blue color – the blue color is often associated with birth.

The “Red Death”

The Red Death is a fictitious disease. The disease has been described as “sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores” that leads to death within half an hour.

At the time the story “The Masquerade of the Death Red” was written, Poe’s wife Virginia was suffering from the disease of tuberculosis. This disease could have been a source for the Red Death in the story. Just like Prince Prosper, Poe ignored the true nature of the disease. Poe’s brother William, his mother Eliza, and his foster mother Frances, died because of tuberculosis.

Moreover, the red Death may also represent Cholera. The epidemic of cholera breaks in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1831. Poe witnessed this epidemic. However, some readers and critics also suggest that the disease refers to the bubonic plague that breaks in Europe in the fourteenth century. This thought of bubonic plague is emphasized when at the climax of the story features Red Death in the black room.

A scholar also gives an explanation by describing the Red Death, not as a disease but the weakness of man that is shared by humankind.

Tone

The tone of the short story “The Masquerade of the Red Death” is grave, dark, and ominous. At moments the tone also becomes delirious. From the start, the short story is dreadfully serious. The story is ominous as it is impossible to escape from the looming threat. Moreover, the dark tone of the dark setting is also prevalent. For example, the opening lines of the story are read as:

The “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal –the redness and the horror of blood.

Moreover, the imagery of the story is dreamy to the extent that the narrator appears to be caught up in the delirium and dizzying whirl of the masquerade he is narrating and describing.

Genre

The short story “the Masquerade of the Red Death” belongs to the genre of Gothic fiction, literary fiction, and fantasy. The story got the feel of Gothic as everything appears to be dark, scary, vague, and threatening. The narrator does not narrate a comfortable moment in the story. The readers do not feel at home at all while reading the story. Like any Gothic story, there is a castle that has creepy and “dark images,” which makes the story terrifying.

Moreover, the story also contains supernatural elements that appear to most of the gothic stories. All these Gothic elements and supernatural stuff makes the “fantastic.” Thus one can say the “The Masque of Red Death” is literary fiction because of its experimental and usual form. The story appears to be more about the setting and atmosphere than the plot and characters.

Title of the Story

The title of the short story “The Masque of the Red Death” represents the masquerade ball. In the party, someone shows up in a costume of a victim of Red Death. The masked figure actually turns out to be the Read Death that kills all the people at the party.

The title of the story originally was “The Mask of the Red Death.” In order to emphasize the costume of the Red Death that he wears on the ball then the ball itself, Poe changes the word “Mask” to Masque.”

Setting

The setting of the short story “The Masque of the Red Death” is a palace or the castle which is remote and cut off from the rest of the world. It is situated in a kingdom that is struck by the plague and death.

The short story is set in the luxurious “castellated abbey” Prince Prospero which is hidden somewhere in the kingdom. The doors of the castle are shut so that no one can enter the house. Everyone in the house is having a party while poor people outside the castle are dying.

The main action of the story takes place in the seven differently painted rooms of the castle. Prospero holds the party in the seven rooms designed by Prospero and runs in a line from east to west. However, the alignment is roughly irregular. The lighting of the castle is also interesting. On either side of the room, there is only one window in each room. The candles are placed to light each room and are placed outside the room; therefore, it creates a unique effect.

The most unique and memorable thing about the rooms is that each room has a different color theme. All of the decoration and paint in a room is of one color. The easternmost room is blue in color, and the next ones are in a color sequence of purple, green, orange, white, violet, and black.

The window of each room is painted with the same color; however, the last room has red windows with black decoration. Moreover, the room also contains a horrifying clock that rings at every hour. The black room is the horrifying room and symbolizes death.

The main goal of such a complicated setting was to produce an effect on the readers. As the story is all about setting and atmosphere, the effect of such a setting is very much important and matters.

Writing Style

The writing style of the story “The Masque of Red Death” is precisely composed, elegant, and colorful. The writing of Poe has two parts: color and line or structure, just like a painter. In the story, everything is clearly described, and the structure has no vagueness at all. The structure is composed and put together into one large unit from lots of individual units. The story is beautifully divided into both sentence-level and paragraph level.

Most of the paragraphs of Poe are either very short or very long. Even the long paragraphs deal with only a single thing. For example, the first paragraph deals with the Red Death, the second paragraph deals with Prospero’s castle retreat, the third is short; the fourth describes the suite, and so on.

The paragraphs contain short sentences with simple structures. The sentences appear to be like an atom, each with one or two details. Sometimes, the sentences also form a list of details. For example:

“There was much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm –much of what has been since seen in “Hernani.” There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There was much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust.”

The sentences of Poe are identical because of their simple structure and appear to be small.

Edgar Allan Poe then fills the clear and simple structure with color. The word choice he has in his stories makes his writing colorful. Sometimes it also depends on the dramatic quality or vividness of the words, for example, “arabesque figures” and delirious fancies.” Also, in the figurative language, he used it in his stories.

The spot-on word choice adds feelings to his works and shows how well put-together his work is. Everything appears to be selected with great care.

Quite often, Poe also produces one monstrous sentence. For example, in the fifth paragraph of the story, there is a sentence that is very long:

“Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken,…, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound;… and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation.”

This sentence is the perfect example of how Poe puts the details in his writings. Poe loves to use lots of descriptive words, even if the sentence is short. For example, while describing the swing of the pendulum, he uses more than one adjective as “a dull, heavy, monotonous clang.”

Ultimately, one can say that the writing style of Edgar Allan Poe is extremely elegant.

Narrator Point of View

The short story “The Masque of the Red Death” is narrated by the third person omniscient narrator. The narrator is not a part of the story or occupies any particular character. He does not have anything to do with the characters at all. The narrator appears to be interested in describing the setting of the Masquerade party. He takes a “birds-eye” view of the guests of the party rather than lodging in the head of any of these characters.

Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

The Seven Colored Rooms

The seven differently decorated rooms in the story represent something symbolic. The black-and-red room obviously symbolizes dead. However, the other rooms also symbolize different stages of life, which is suggested by its color. The suit of the masquerade party can be taken as allegory. The first evidence for being allegorical is it is arranged from east to west direction. East is usually associated with the beginning and birth as the sun rises in the east, whereas the west is associated with death and endings.

Considering this reading, the blue room in which the easternmost symbolizes birth. The color proposes the “unknown” from which a human arrives into the world. The next room is decorated in the color purple, which is the combination of blue and red. The purple color suggests the start of the growth. The next room is decorated in green color. It suggests youth, the spring period of life. The orange color symbolizes the summer and the autumn of life. The next color is white, which suggests old age i.e., white hair and weak bones. Violet is the combination of purple and blue and results in shadowy color representing darkness. And the color black is for death.

One surprising thing is there is no room in red color. Red is the better color to show the autumn and spring of life. However, maybe, Poe wants to save the color so as to associate it with blood, fear, and death. It always goes with black and black is the color of death such as Red Death, and the darkness is associated till the end of the story, the color red and black both are present in the last room.

Through the allegorical reading of the story, one can also observe that the partygoers do not go to the black room as they appear to be afraid of death. Moreover, the Red Death walks from one room to another in a sequence as if it is walking the course of life that leads from birth to death.

While chasing the Red Death, Prospero also goes from the blue room to the black room and eventually dies there. In order to attack and unmask the Red Death, the partygoers also go to the black room and die. So the characters in the story walk both metaphorically and literally from the course of life to death.

The Clock

There is a big creepy black ebony clock hanging in the black room. The clock reminds the partygoers of the passing time and approaching death. Certainly, it shows the time that flies and the inevitability of death. It rings at the hour regularly and consistently reminding that life is drifting away. The sound or noise of the clock stops all the dancing and music, so the clock has a more enhanced effect.

The “Castellated Abbey”

The “Castellated abbey” is a confined place and cut off from the rest of the world. It is hidden where no one can easily find it. Moreover, the doors of the castle are also locked from inside so that no one can enter or leave the palace. This means that everyone inside the house is trapped. To create a threatening atmosphere of the story, the sense of confinement is necessary.

The abbey is a symbol of worldly power that stands above the poor peasants who are ravaged by the Red Death. The castle and abbey can symbolize both church and the state. It is also suggested that the castle is made fall to the Read Death symbolizes some sort of apocalypse.

The Red Death

The Red Death is a fictitious disease. The disease has been described as “sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores” that leads to death within half an hour.

A scholar also gives an explanation by describing the Red Death, not as a disease but the weak man that is shared by humankind.

The Masquerade/Dream Imagery

The short story “The Masque of the Red Death” appears to be a scary dream. The dreamlike feeling gets stronger when the suite for the Masquerade ball is arranged by Prince Prospero. Everything appears to be strange, wild, grotesque, frenzied, and intense. There are the masqueraders and their glaring and glittering costumes. All of these images make a mad collage of images. Even Poe uses dram language while describing these images.

For example, in the seventh paragraph, he writes:

“There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There was much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams.”

All of these images are too real to be true. It appears to be the creation of a mad imagination or a strange and weird dream. Poe suggests a dizzying and frenzied scene by describing the “writhing” dancers, “swelling” music, and the “giddiness.” All the things are uncontrolled, chaotic, and mixed-up. The whole world appears to be spinning around and seems to be a bad dream.

Everything in the suite appears to be representing something, whether it is colors of the room, the clock, or the party itself. The descriptive language employed in the story is overly meaningful or “oppressively meaningful.” This kind of excessive symbolization is found in dreams or artwork or in the mind of a mad artist.

One can also say that to cut the whole setting of the story from reality, Poe also does something. For example, the setting of the short story “The Masque of the Red Death” is a palace or the castle which is remote and cut off from the rest of the world. It is situated in a kingdom that is struck by the plague and death.

Art Imagery

The things in the short suggesting that the masquerade ball is a dream are because it gives a sense of unreality and hyper-meaningfulness. There is exaggerated imagery and colors, which also suggests that masquerade is the production of pure imagination – the imagination of an artist.

The Shakespearean Connection

The name of the main character of the story “The Masque of the Red Death” resembles that of the protagonist of The Tempest by William Shakespeare. In fact, the beginning of Poe’s story and Shakespeare’s play are linked.

There is one well-designed connection that appears to be really important for some of the scholars. There is the mention of “red plague” in the play The Tempest. The Cabilan characters early in play utter a curse, which shows up as “red plague.”

More than the similarity between “red plague” and Red Death,” there are other connections too. These connections between the two are explored by observing the “Prosperos” of the two works. There are great similarities between the two characters. However, the two characters are unique in their own way; Shakespeare’s Prospero is soccer, while Poe’s Prospero is a great artist.

Apocalyptic Symbolism

The line about the Red Death approaching “like a thief in the night” seems familiar because it is the most famous line in the Bible. It is written in Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonian. In this letter, Paul refers to the last judgment. According to the letter, Jesus Christ will come back into the world when the world is not at all, expecting his arrival.

He will arrive “like a thief in the night” to judge the sinner for all of perpetuity. One should be prepared for that day as if you are caught unprepared; you are going to be in real trouble. It is between expecting a day of the judge and preparing oneself for it rather than focusing on the pleasures of the world.

Poe applies the phrase of Paul about Jesus to Red Death. While doing so, he makes the Red Death as an “apocalyptic figure.” Apocalyptic figure symbolizes the end of the world. Prince Prospero and his friends, like sinners, foolishly ignore the inevitable end of life and engage themselves in the pleasures of life. Like sinners, Prince Prospero and his friend, pay the price for their ignorance.

In “The Masque of the Red Death,” the characters do not cost too much for the pleasure of the world. However, unlike Jesus Christ, instead of choosing the sinners among the partygoers, the Red Death kills everyone. The end that Poe envisions at the end of the story is not among the judgment and salvation or suffering. This inevitable is summed up in the last line as “And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion overall.”

The lines can be explained in a deeper way by exploring the means through which the masquerade can be taken as the symbol for the world. The term “the world” has a negative connotation in the apocalyptic literature. It usually refers to the evil, base, and profane life that we live on earth, as compared to the spiritual and high life with God. Before the judgment, the world will become chaotic, frenzied, topsy-turvy, violent, grotesque, and absorbed in sin, just like the masquerade ball.

The Masque of the Red Death