Red Death Characters

Engl 0102 Paper 2 February 27, 2006

Character Analysis of

“Mask of the Red Death”

I chose to analyze two of the characters within “The Masque of the Red Death”, Prince Prospero, and The masked intruder at the end portrayed as death. The name that Edgar Allen Poe has given the main character entices a reader to speculate. I decided it was necessary to read a short biography on Edgar Allen Poe; because one of the things that occurred to me as I read the short story I imaged the likes of Edgar Allen Poe every time the story line turned to Prince Prospero. Why this was I am not sure, maybe it was because of Poes’ picture on the first page; but after reading the biography, I saw a lot of similarities between Poe
An abbey by definition is a church that is or once was part of a monastery or convent. This fact is rather ironic. In the history of our world, there was a plague similar to the one in “The Masque of the Red Death”. The black plague tore through the European countryside and at its end, decreased the population significantly. No person was safe from its wrath, no person was immune from its terror. In the story, the Prince tries to defy history and death in his spineless act, by removing himself from the outside world. In another act of fear and denial, the prince decides to throw a great masquerade during the height of the plague, a futile attempt to hide from and disguise the “red death”. The character is made out to be cowardly. For his masquerade he embellishes the seven chambers. Another good example of the similarity in taste that is shared by Poe, and his character Prince Prospero, is the embellishments of the seven chambers. “He had a fine eye for colors and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric luster.” ( Poe, 247) This shows further eccentricity. “The prince was a bold and robust man.” (Poe, 248) Perhaps this is what
He is described as “tall and gaunt”. (Poe, 248) The reader is introduced to a disease, a plague, with hideous and terrifying symptoms, that take an extremely rapid course, one that has an inevitable termination, it is death. Poe's greatest emphasis is on blood, not as a sign or a symptom, but as the incarnation of evil, the manifestation of fear and a seal. A seal is something that confirms, assures or ratifies like a pact. The appearance of blood is confirmation or assurance of the existence of the Red Death -- of Death itself. There is horror in the discovery that “the grave-cerements and corpse-like mask”(Poe, 249) are “untenanted by any tangible form,”. (Poe, 249) Through the supernatural interpretation the horror of death runs deep into the soul, it washes itself clean and emerges as truth, which is unseen. As Poe describes; blood is symbolic of the life force; but even as it suggests life, blood serves as a reminder of death. Poe in his fascination of the macabre gives death life in the story. Death is a character ever present through out the story, but only actually appears in the end. Poe infuses death with elements of terror, and he “enshrouds” not only death but the terror of death in clothes of his own making—“the habiliments of the grave” (Poe, 248) —and then runs to escape it or, madly, to kill it, trying to “cheat” death itself. The image here is that even the fear of death can kill: