The Masque of the red Death
The Masque of the Red Death
Do you think Prince Prospero is a tragic hero, or a fool? Support your opinion with evidence from the text.
The short story "Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Alan Poe, essentially, is the story narrating about the human desire to avoid death and the final result of such avoidance. The main character, Prince Prospero is shown as a complete fool by the attitude he has towards his life, kingdom, and other people. We can notice that Poe right away shows Prince Prospero to be fatally flawed by naming him Shakespeare’s term for wealth and the magician from the story “The Tempest" who was a sorcerer and could make the products of his imagination real. Like Shakespeare's Prospero, Prince Prospero in Poe’s story uses his magic to arrange a fairy-tale and fabulous revel. And same as the other Prospero, his carousal is doomed to come to an end. From Prince Prospero’s actions we can infer that he is a terrible person as well as an awful ruler. He doesn’t think about suffering of his people. He behaves like he just doesn’t notice the peasants dying of the plague: “The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think”. The only thing Prince Prospero does in this deplorable situation is dancing, drinking and basically having fun while the dreadful “Red Death” is killing the innocent people of his country: “But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court…” At the end, Prince Prospero really does not want to face death. He consciously flees it with his friends and tries not to think about it at all. But unfortunately, everyone has to die, sooner or later. And Prospero’s impossible attempt to avoid death is doomed to failure. His ignorance of external world and focusing only on life's pleasures makes him a typical "fool" figure.
Do you think Prince Prospero is a tragic hero, or a fool? Support your opinion with evidence from the text.
The short story "Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Alan Poe, essentially, is the story narrating about the human desire to avoid death and the final result of such avoidance. The main character, Prince Prospero is shown as a complete fool by the attitude he has towards his life, kingdom, and other people. We can notice that Poe right away shows Prince Prospero to be fatally flawed by naming him Shakespeare’s term for wealth and the magician from the story “The Tempest" who was a sorcerer and could make the products of his imagination real. Like Shakespeare's Prospero, Prince Prospero in Poe’s story uses his magic to arrange a fairy-tale and fabulous revel. And same as the other Prospero, his carousal is doomed to come to an end. From Prince Prospero’s actions we can infer that he is a terrible person as well as an awful ruler. He doesn’t think about suffering of his people. He behaves like he just doesn’t notice the peasants dying of the plague: “The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think”. The only thing Prince Prospero does in this deplorable situation is dancing, drinking and basically having fun while the dreadful “Red Death” is killing the innocent people of his country: “But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court…” At the end, Prince Prospero really does not want to face death. He consciously flees it with his friends and tries not to think about it at all. But unfortunately, everyone has to die, sooner or later. And Prospero’s impossible attempt to avoid death is doomed to failure. His ignorance of external world and focusing only on life's pleasures makes him a typical "fool" figure.