Allegory and Symbolism of “The Masque of the Red Death”
The Masque of the Red Death is a story of symbolism and allegory. Everything from the arrangement of the seven chambers, the ebony clock, and the color red. The seven chambers are arranged ever so carefully, “The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time.” The chambers are color coded by which I see as the seven stages of life. Whereas blue represents birth, purple representing youth, green representing adolescence, orange representing adulthood, white representing old age, violet representing imminent death, and black representing death itself. The chambers are additionally arranged from East to West. East starting with blue and West ending in black. Likewise, the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, it goes from the beginning to end of your life similar to how the sun rises and brings light, then sets and everything becomes dark. Although Prospero can’t escape death, he
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Everything in the seventh chamber is accented with a “deep blood color” and “blood-tinted panes.” The Masque of the Red Death is life vs. death. The seventh chamber is similar to death because it is black and red which represents death. Not to mention, the ‘Red Death’ causes you to bleed out of your pores, “Blood was its Avatar and its seal -- the redness and the horror of blood”, which summarizes how red symbolizes death and fear. Furthermore, guests wouldn’t enter the room because the windows were coded with red and that gave off the representation the disease was in that chamber and they would die “in the blood-bedewed halls.” However, there cannot be death without life. The masked ball is the life in the short story. The masked ball is composed of elements that represent life such as happiness and excitement. Guests avoid the seventh room at the party which symbolizes death, so you could interpret they are avoiding