Edgar Allan Poe's The Masque Of The Red Death

A wise man named Albert Einstein once said, “We all try to escape pain and death, while we seek what is pleasant.” Death has always and will always come to those who are mortal. Death is not a simple thing that can easily be escaped, it will root out any hidden individual, wherever they are obscured and will carry out its duty. Just like in the story, “The Masque of the Red Death,” death will stop at nothing to destroy life. A man name Prince Prospero and his followers learned this lesson the hard way. They were plagued by a horrible disease called the red death. This disease killed its victims in a matter of minutes. It was an extremely painful and fast-paced sickness that was highly contagious. Prospero and his followers, in a desperate

“There came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily” (Page 2). Each and every chime that emanated from the black ebony clock came with great strain to the people of the court. It caused everyone to hesitate with their amusement and constrain their eyes and hearing to the sooty pendulum, observing it in fear. This skittish gaze upon the clock causes the atmosphere of the room to dramatically change and decline into an uneasy, and slightly dark feeling. As the uneasy feeling grew and the entourages became increasingly more alarmed with every tinkle of the clock, they subconsciously began to take note of the passing time, Every hour it rung out into the night, they fell deeper into the void of uneasiness and the atmosphere kept collapsing further in on

“It happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before” (Page two). The masked figure appeared out of practically nowhere as the clock struck twelve, signifying the beginning of the witching hour. The witching hour is thought to be the time that ghosts, demons, and witches are at their strongest peak or when they appear to be the most powerful (Bhatia). It is also believed that ghosts are at their strongest during this time period due to the veil, between the living and the dead, being thinner than other times of the day (Sedgwick). With all this being said, it explains how no one was able to cease the red death. It seemed to behave like an apparition as no one was able to grab ahold of the mysterious figure. The metaphor of red death, along with the witching hour, helps to add to the feeling of eeriness and helps to portray the actions of the courtiers. The witching hour itself signifies the arrival of a evil in this world. As the clock rings out and the devil’s hour gets closer, the chimes begin to encroach on the courtiers’ comfort as the hourly silence gets eerier every time it