Comparing Poe's The Masque Of The Red Death

The Masque of the Red Death is a short story written by Edgar Allen Poe, and was later adapted into a graphic novel by Gareth Hinds. The Masque of the Red Death is about a Prince named Prospero who invites a thousand of his friends into his castle to party and to escape the raging epidemic outside. This epidemic, called the Red Death, causes sudden dizziness, intense pain, and profuse bleeding. The disease can kill its victims in half an hour. One night while Prince Prospero is throwing a masquerade party in a seven room suite, a masked but terrifying individual arrives and terrifies the Prince and his guests. In his rage, Prince Prospero decides to charge at the individual with a knife but before the prince can reach him, he becomes infected with the disease and

One similarity is that they both have a supernatural antagonist. The written version says “The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in habiliments of the grave.” In comparison, the graphic novel depicts a figure who is also shrouded in wrappings like what the book said and also has a face that is reminiscent of a skull. Another similarity between the two is the idea that death is inevitable. In both depictions of the story, everyone in the party dies of the disease that they were hiding from, “And one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall.” The two adaptations of the story also both present Prince Prospero and his friends in similar ways. In both versions, they are represented as foolish, selfish, and unruly. The graphic novel shows people climbing on top of each other at one point and in both adaptations the readers see them ignoring the raging epidemic in favor of partying in the castle. The written and illustrated versions also share dissimilarities between