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The Masque of the Red Death: Language and Symbolism

Uploaded by spootyhead on Mar 19, 2007

The Masque of the Red Death: Language and Symbolism

Edgar Allen Poe's The Masque of the Red Death is an elaborate allegory that combines objects in the story with visual descriptions to give focus to the reader's imagination. In the story, a prince named Properso tries to dodge the Red Death through isolation and seclusion. He hides behind impenetrable walls of his castellated abbey and lets the world take care of its own. But no walls can stop death because it is unavoidable and inevitable. Visual descriptions in the story are used to symbolize death. Poe's use of language and symbolism is shown in his description of the seventh room in the suite, the ebony clock, and the fire. These objects are used to depict the theme of the story death "held illimitable dominion over all" (363).

The first symbolic mean of death is depicted in the seventh room in the suite. Poe says, "The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue" (359). He uses the seventh room to symbolize the final stage of life, death. He sees the black velvet tapestries as blood flowing from the ceiling and walls to the floor. The relationship between blood and death is important because he wants the reader to have a visual image of the blood pouring down the walls as a form of death.

The fire lighting the suite of rooms is another object in the story that represented death. He says, "...There stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire that projected its rays through the tinted glass... But in the western or black chamber the effect of the firelight that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered..." (359). The fire was meant to produce a shadowy atmosphere in the west and a favorable one in the east. This is symbolic to the sunrise in the east and sunset in the west because light means life and darkness means death. Poe uses darkness as another visual representation of death.

The gigantic clock...

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Uploaded by:   spootyhead

Date:   03/19/2007

Category:   Literature

Length:   3 pages (574 words)

Views:   6520

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