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 Prospero 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 the death that came to a dark, unkind and ignorant prince. Prospero failed to see that death "held illimitable dominion over all."…
For me poetry is usually rather difficult to decipher the real meaning behind the rhyming and sentences that do not really flow with everyday speaking. This poem is an elegy in closed form which encompasses elements such as: alliteration, syntax, diction, rhyme, and has been one of the most parodied poems of all American literature. After much reflection, I believe the way in which Poe intended this poem to be…
The pendulum that begins to descend to the breast of the narrator begins to enhance Poe’s theme by allowing for the narrator’s feelings to completely emerge. The audience is able to understand the narrator’s thoughts because it is coming from a first person perspective. The narrator’s realization of doom in the passage, inspires thoughts of hope, and allow for his characterization to change from pessimistic to hopeful. This occurs as thinks that “It was hope--the hope that triumphs on the rack” (Poe 6). His new thoughts altogether not only changes his characterization, but also the mood of the scene. The mood then converts from depressing into inspiration.…
In Poe’s story the “The Pit and the Pendulum” he distinctively uses symbolism, repetition, mood and diction to tell a tale of hope over circumstance to make this story come to life for the reader. Unlike the hypersensitive characters from other stories, such as the narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” this narrator claims to lose the capacity of sensation during the swoon upon receiving his death sentence that opens the story. This story is different from Poe’s other works such as this narrator remains hopeful in his emotional state; he is able to describe his surroundings while also portraying his emotional chaos. We the readers are not given specific circumstances of his arrest, nor are we given any evidence for his innocence. Although, even without those details he gives us a famous suspense story that is violent and graphic yet hopeful and ethically allusive.…
The two short stories by Edgar Allan Poe - The Masque of the Red Death and The Tell-Tale Heart, have some rather important differences but mostly share the same tone/mood, themes and other stylistic ways.…
There are only a few certain things in life that everyone must deal with one of them being death. Edgar Allan Poe, the author of “The Masque of the Red Death” theme is no one can escape death no matter what precautions are taken. Prince Prospero is a cowardice king that abandons his throne to save himself and his followers to enclose themselves in a castle in hope of hiding from death that ravages his kingdom. One man in modern history similar to Prince Prospero is the cult leader Jim Jones. Jones is the leader of the people's temple, a religious cult that believes in radical and racial ideals. He is a mass murderer that convinces his followers that he would protect them, the same was said of Prince Prospero. In Edgar…
Many poems, although very unique, share important features that help us as the audience better understand what people go through in their lifetime. There are instances where the reader can feel what the poet is feeling and that is what makes a great poet differ from an ordinary poet. As in anything, poetry is subjective to each individual and one person might look at a piece of poetry one way or experience it another way. In the poem, “Alone”, by Edgar Allan Poe, the speaker of the poem who is Poe, shows his true self to the reader and is not ashamed to hide anything. He is interpreting his life and wants the reader to understand him. This is similar to the poem in Spanish, “El Poeta” by Pablo Neruda. Another important poem is the French poem,…
Creating the Melancholic Tone in "The Raven" Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven," representing Poe's own introverted crisis of hell, is unusually moving and attractive to the reader. In his essay entitled "The Philosophy of Composition," Poe reveals his purpose in writing "The Raven" and also describes the work of composing the poem as being carefully calculated in all aspects. Of all melancholy topics, Poe wished to use the one that was universally understood, death; specifically death involving a beautiful woman. The apparent tone in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" seemingly represents a very painful condition of mind, an intellect sensitive to madness and the abyss of melancholy brought upon by the death of a beloved lady. The parallelism of Poe's own personal problems, with those of the narrator in "The Raven," his calculated use of symbolism, and the articulation of language through the use of the raven's refrain, the reader becomes aware of Poe's prominent tone of melancholy. A strong device for the melancholic tone in "The Raven" is Poe's use of the first person. Poe used the first person by virtue of the situations in "The Raven" taking direct influence from Poe's life experiences. Among many other misfortunes, including living a life of poverty and being orphaned at a young age, Poe's beloved wife Virginnia, died after a long illness. The narrator's sorrow for the lost Lenore is paralleled with Poe's own grief regarding the death of his wife. Confined in the chamber are memories of her who had frequented it. These ghostly recollections cultivate an enormous motive in the reader to know and be relieved of the bewilderment that plagues the narrator and consequently Poe himself; the narrator ponders whether he will see his wife in the afterlife. After Virginnia's lingering death, Poe tried to relieve his grief by drinking. A parallelism is formed in "The Raven" between the condescending actions of the raven towards the narrator and the taunting of alcohol towards…
Edgar Allen Poe (the author) uses symbolism in his attempt to tell us the theme of the story. He uses four main symbols: The prince, the red death, each of the rooms of the house, and the clock of ebony. The prince represented man, and interestingly enough his name (Prospero) sounds remarkably like ‘prosperous’. Put these facts together, he was a wealthy man, but all of mankind does applies to his character. The red death symbolized death, the clock is the universal symbol for time, and each of the colorful rooms represented a different stage of man’s life. When the red death occurs, the Prince locks him and his friends away in his palace where they would supposedly stay safe. When the clock struck twelve, the Red death manifests itself as a masked man, and Prospero, in his fury, rushes across the rooms at it. “through the blue chamber to the purple -- through the purple to the green -- through the green to the orange -- through this again to the white -- and even thence to the violet” (Poe) Put all these facts together, and it creates a short story of a man, who lived life as we lived ours, and when his time came, he died. A simple story of one’s life. Now how does this explain the theme? it was the manner in what he did. He tried to murder death, Prospero murdering death, or kill off death with money you could say. But he died anyways, hence the ‘no amount of money can bribe death’.…
Edgar Allen Poe’s poems represented his everyday life. Some were about the sad lonely nights and some were about the good nights of his life. He always used chamber rather than bedroom to make poems sound more historic. The Bells was most people’s favorite poem. Poe’s poem words went so well together people just didn’t know how he did it. As of today there are still fans of Edgar Allan Poe.…
'The Tell Tale Heart' is a story about a man who killed an old man just because he didn't like the way his eyes looked like. The main character speaks about madness as being a gift and not a kid of disability for example in paragraph one on page 93 he says: ' but why would you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses-not destroyed-not dulled them'. The mad man killed the old man and then cut him up and put him under the floorboards of the house.…
Once something is gone, it is extremely hard to recover. Poe proves this true in his poems, many of which are about the loss of ideal beauty. Poe often writes about this, even so much as defining poetry as "The rhythmical creation of beauty", as stated in his writing, "The Poetic Principle". Three poems that are specifically about the loss of ideal beauty are: "The Raven", "Lenore" and "Annabel Lee".…
Symbolism of the Scarlet Letter AIn Nathaniel Hawthorne 's The Scarlet Letter, the meaning of the letter A changes throughout the novel. This change is significant as it indicates the personal growth of the characters as well as the enlightenment of the townspeople. When the novel begins, the letter A is a symbol of sin. As the story progresses the A slowly is viewed as a symbol of Hesters strength and ability (Hawthorne Julian). By the end of the novel, the letter A has undergone a complete metamorphosis and represents the respect that Hester has for herself.…
Imagery is effective in this poem to reveal its ominous mood. Poe uses dark words to create a gloomy setting at the start of the poem. He narrates, "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary" (1). The setting is in the middle of the dark and scary night, while he's tired. He explains the setting further by saying, "Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, / and each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor" (7, 8) He is in a cold and desolate atmosphere, in the middle of winter, and the fire starts to die off, creating a spooky mood.…
The melodic nature of the poem and its very gloomy tone is reinforced by Poe’s choice of words and the sound effects that they convey. By the use of rhyme, the poem is made to…