Symbolism In the Masque of the Red Death

The Symbolism of the Seven Chambers and Death in the “Masque of the Red Death” In the Masque of the Red Death, Poe utilizes components of the incredible, for example, the story’s questionable setting and storyteller, the unusual seven rooms where the masque is held, and the appearance of an otherworldly figure in the “Red Death” to convey the frightfulness and inescapability of death. Through his symbolism, Poe urges the spectator an exceptionally basic truth: none of us can escape demise. The incredible components of the story to give puzzle and unusual quality to that make its reasonable message all the more powerful. The odd masque Prospero gives is both an image of man’s momentary presence and man’s endeavor to transcend his own particular mortality. Of the masque, Poe says that” there was a great part of the wonderful, a great part of the wanton, a great part of the unusual, something of the unpleasant, and not a tad bit of that which may have energized loathing” (Poe 263-64). These clashing components consolidate much in the way that components of the story do, making a drearily entrancing mixture. The colored light which enlightens the rooms is prevalent theme for faultfinders to dissect. “G.R. Thompson helps us that one to remember the most loved interests of commentators is attempting to distinguish the typical importance of the colors of the seven rooms’ of Prince Prospero’s majestic suite, yet they have experienced issues assenting to the centrality of the shades or on the off chance that they have any hugeness whatsoever.”(Zimmerman 60). The colored rooms are surely a conundrum Poe never makes clear. One conceivable elucidation Brett Zimmerman development of these hued chambers, which questionably fits the story’s general subject, is that one room symbolizes a phase of life. Zimmerman declares that blue speaks to the start of life and the otherworldly existence connected with it; purple, the sovereignty of Prospero (which he procured during

Cited: Dudley, David R. “Dead or Alive: The Booby-Trapped Narrator of Poe’s ‘Masque of the Red Death’.” Studies in Short Fiction 30.2 (1993): 169-173. Print. Osipova, Elvira. “Aesthetic Effects of ‘King Pest’ and ‘The Masque of the Red Death’.” Edgar Allan Poe Review 8.2 (2007): 25-33. Print. Poe, Edgar Allan. The Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2004. 261-66. Print. Zimmerman, Brett. “The Puzzle Of the Color Symbolism In ‘The Masque Of the Red Death’: Solved At Last?” Edgar Allan Poe Review 10.3 (2009): 60-73. Print.