Edgar Allan Poe's The Masque Of The Red Death

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What actually killed the people in the abbey? Everyone knows how quickly germs spread in a confined area. Germs spread through any contact people have. Most people are spreading germs and not even knowing it. In the story The Masque of the Red Death, Prince Prospero is the patient zero that infects everyone with the plague. It is obvious the plague killed everyone in the abbey. All of the nobles and high status people moved into the abbey with the Prince when the plague hit. While everyone else in the town was left to be contaminated by the plague. Poe describes the abbey as such a strong structure as if nothing can penetrate it, “A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces …show more content…

This someone being Prospero. It is always the little things that no one thinks about that comes back to get them. The rooms were so crowded, “but these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of life” (Poe 7). As soon as one person became contaminated it only would only take a matter of time before everyone else in the abbey got contaminated. Whether it was a cough, a sneeze, or a handshake; any contact could have led to the spread of the plague. Then it was only a matter of time once they all were contaminated that they start dying. It is possible that Prospero was the one that contaminated everyone. Prince Prospero, as arrogant as he seemed, could have not been thinking and drank the public water or opened a window. In the midst of the party, he was the one mingling with everyone that was there. That is what began the spread of the plague throughout the party. Imagine the infection rate of the plague as a domino effect. Prince Prospero is the first domino in line. He coughs without covering his mouth in a large room full of people. He could have possibly spread the plague to five other people; causing more dominos to fall. As the night goes on, more people become contaminated, and more dominos continue to