The Masque Of Red Death Analysis

The inevitability of death: Whether it is by natural causes or by disease, death is a part of existence. In the Edgar Allan Poe story, “The Masque of Red Death”, people are dying from a viciously fast-acting plague. Within thirty minutes of getting the disease, a person is dead. In Robert Kirkmans comic book turned TV series, The Walking Dead, disease is very much a part of peoples every day life. “Walkers,” or people infected, remind the people remaining in this world of the disease. “The Masque of Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe and The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman both show that death will always conquer all through their depictions of death, characters, and the state of the world when the stories take place. In both “The Masque of Red
Prince Prospero locks himself and 1000 of his closest friends in one of his castles. His idea behind this is that by locking them inside, it will keep the disease out. In a way they do this as a way to block out the rest of the world: “The external world could take care of itself”(Poe 1). They are shutting out the rest of the world and the disease by locking themselves up. In The Walking Dead the main character must have had the same idea as Prince Prospero. He too locks himself and his remaining friends and family inside of a prison. He hopes that by doing this he can protect the people he loves from the disease outside of the prison walls. While locking themselves in, the people inside began to contract a deadly flu like illness. It seems that what he tried so hard to prevent had managed to find its way inside. They had to quarantine the people who were sick from the ones who weren’t in hopes of keeping the sickness away from the healthy. A quote from the show that helps to explain this is “ Nowadays you breath, and you risk your life”(The Walking Dead). This particular quote shows us as the audience that no matter what precautions they may take, it’s never enough to keep death out. Death is in the very air that we breathe. Although the disease they are trying to protect themselves from is different, people seem to have the same idea when
Even with the stories taking place during different times, the human race is plagued with disease in both. During Poe’s story he mentions that Prince Prospero lives in one of his many castles while the outbreak is happening. This begins to show us that this story takes place awhile back. Another hint we get towards the time period is that he hosts a masquerade ball within his castle. A quote from the story says, “It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade” (Poe 1). After he describes the ball some more he goes into detail about all the different velvet rooms that his partygoers are welcome to enter. In The Walking Dead we know that this story is futuristic because of the state of the world. There are zombies roaming the earth, and a few humans trying to make a life for themselves. The reason that people have turned into zombies, or walkers, is because there is a disease of the brain. A quote from one of the main characters, Rick is “We are all infected”(The Walking Dead). This particular quote rattles the rest of the characters because it really shows them that no matter what, there is no way for them to escape the inevitability of