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Examples Of Arrogance In The Masque Of The Red Death

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Evil feeds on arrogance. The main character, in “The Masque of the Red Death,” was self-absorbed. Prince Prospero’s frailty is his arrogance. While the rest of the world was fending to survive an atrocious pestilence, Prince Prospero locked up the gates of his abbey; then, he remarked, “The external world can fend for itself (Poe, page 373).” “In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the "Red Death (Poe, page. 373)” Thus, the prince’s arrogance caused him to believe he was truly able to escape the Red …show more content…

It was open --wide, wide open --and I [he] grew furious as I [he] gazed upon it. I [he] saw it with perfect distinctness --all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones; but I [he] could see nothing else of the old man's face or person: for I [he] had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot (Poe, page 2).” For the reason being the main character is haunted by the old man’s eye, he becomes irate towards it. In order to alleviate the madness, his mentally unstable mind is assuring him how murdering the man will get rid of the negative ambiances coming from the supposedly “Evil Eye.” Consequently, as a minor delirium towards the eye turns into anger, this leads into assassination, which is an evil act. The main character slaughtered the old man, causing him to die. “I [the main character] removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I [he] placed my [his] hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more (Poe, page 2).” Since the narrator was angry, he decided to murder the old man. He had killed the eye for his selfish reason because of the culpability that ached inside of him. Nonetheless, the evil is further carried through “The …show more content…

For the reason that this made the main character irritated, he “took from my [his] waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast [Pluto] by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! (Poe, page 2)” The alcohol has impaired the main character’s judgement, and as a result, he has a corrupted mind and is becoming madder and madder. His alcoholic problem caused him to believe his evil action, in regards to taking the cat’s eye out and killing the cat, was plausible. There were “evil thoughts [that] became my [the main character’s] sole intimates… The moodiness of my [his] usual temper increased to hatred… [Eventually when] the cat followed me [the main character]…, [it] exasperated me [him] to madness. I [he attempted to] aim a blow [with an axe] at the animal… Goaded, by the interference [of his wife], into a rage more than demoniacal, I [he] withdrew my [his] arm from her [his wife’s] grasp and buried the axe in her [narrator’s wife’s] brain (Poe, page 4).” Because the narrator was annoyed and infuriated, he kills his wife, as well, for interfering with his plan to kill the second cat they adopted; thus this shows the main character’s corrupted and malicious mind. The former joyful, generous man sprouts into an evil and a criminal, who murders Pluto, his cat, and his wife. As shown throughout this short story, the

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Poe brings the horror even further once the murder has happened. The narrator starts the killing after the door was “open-wide, wide open-and I grew furious and I gaze upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness- all a dull blue, a hideous veil over it that chilled the very morren in my bones”(2). The

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1082 Words | 5 Pages

“. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead.

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Poe utilizes the symbolism of the “eye” to illustrate that insanity can be criticized from an individual's intellect. The narrator didn't have anything against the old man but he had something against his eye. In paragraph 2,”...and thus rid myself of the eye forever. ”The narrator is trying to prove his sanity but his eye is making him insane.he is explaining his whole murder that he says how can an insane person plan a murder. Also in paragraph 2, it states ,”...

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708 Words | 3 Pages

Edgar Allen Poe uses symbols such as the Red Death, masquerade ball, and even the castellated abbeys in the allegory “The Masque of the Red Death” to teach all readers, no matter their age, ethnicity, or gender, to acknowledge other people’s problems. This story applies to real-life situations, such as the HIV outbreak in the 1980s; it was believed that the disease could only be contracted by homosexual men and drug users, so it seemed unimportant to the sober, straight community, who mainly just tried to ignore it. It was only when HIV was detected in straight women and children who did not use drugs that Americans started worrying about the disease and began funding and developing research on it. In this case, HIV was like the Red Death in

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The narrator was so consumed with the man's eye that he killed him just to get rid of the man's judgment. Though there were some repercussions with his immoral choices,he cannot take the terrible things

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564 Words | 3 Pages

Here he reflects upon his childhood of a cat and the story drastically changes to where he kills this cat. The inspiration of his cat leads to mental unsteadiness to where he kills his wife in the end. " Sat, the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder" (Poe 14). The power of government establishes the laws. Therefore he had broken them when commuting murder to his cat for animal abuse, and first degree murder for his wife.

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Rough Draft Analysis Some people think that running away from problems in life is an amazing way to get out of them. “The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe, expresses how the effort of running away from a disease is not possible. The people believed that now that the prince, their loyal friend, had let them into the castle they were all safe from the terrible disease called “Red Death”. Everyone was having a good time at a ball that the prince had made for his friends.

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This is exactly the reason the narrator has killed the old man, because of his “evil eye”. Not only is this ridiculous on its own, but the narrator directly states that he loved this man. “I loved the old man. He had never wronged

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1394 Words | 6 Pages

Throughout history, many influential writers have used literature to teach people about human nature; these writers used their works improve the morals of humanity. In the 18th century, Romantic and Gothic writers used many literary elements to make their works more meaningful. These included figurative language, symbolism, imagery, allusions, mood and tone to enhance the theme in their stories. Two men who did this were the Gothic writer Edgar Allan Poe, and the Gothic romance writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. The works “The Masque of the Red Death” by Poe, and “The Minister’s Black Veil” by Hawthorne, are examples of using literary elements to enhance theme.

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The man says, “You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing.” Tying in with the arrogant tones as well, the man has a very dark mind and the readers get a glimpse of his thought train through first person. He explains he needs to “take the life of the old man and thus rid myself of the eye forever.” No sane person would kill over a color of an eye, but as he describes the old man’s eye, the audience begins to understand why he takes the life of the old man.

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“He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall” (Poe). Edgar Allan Poe was an American author and poet during the 1800’s (anb). He is known for his gothic style of writing, and tragic tales. Poe has written famous pieces such as The Raven (1845), The Black Cat (1843), and The Tell Tale Heart(1843).

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760 Words | 4 Pages

As a result, the narrator is insane and should not be prosecuted. To start off , the eye drove the narrator to insanity, which led him to take the life of the old man, The narrator does not know right from wrong. In the story, the narrator said that “For it was not the old man who vexed me, but his evil eye”(Poe). This quote from the passage proves that he is insane because he is deciding to kill someone over his “vulture eye”. A sane person would realize that killing someone over a eye is a silly, wrong thing

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1164 Words | 5 Pages

The narrator 's sole reason for such murder is purely in his disturbed mind, as he develops an obsession with the old man 's eye and the plot unfolds from here where his insanity augments with the events of the story. Due to Poe’s illustrative language, various evidence can be presented to confirm the state of mind of the narrator, including, his obsession with the old man’s eye, his precision in committing the impeccable crime and finally the sound of the man’s beating heart solely inside his head. Perhaps it all started with the narrator’s obsession with the man’s “vulture eye” since he believes the eye of being evil, proving the insanity he is gravely trying to deny “I think it was

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763 Words | 4 Pages

1) Throughout the story of “The Black Cat” the word perverseness is mentioned a great deal of times. The word Perverseness means wicked, but what Poe is trying to come across is something different since Poe chooses to include the word Perverseness before Pluto's death. For the narrator perverseness means that it’s good to do the bad thing sometimes because it’s something that we as humans do normally, Poe mentions this aswell that “Perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart”(2).Also, when the man takes Pluto’s eye out, the man notices that the cat doesn’t like him and is frighten of the man. This causes the man to be “Grieved” or sad because of the dislike that the cat has for him and the “Spirit of perverseness... which

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821 Words | 4 Pages

No sane person would think of doing such a thing, they would just avoid seeing the old man. Instead, the narrator chooses to kill the old man which does not make sense to the average, but to him, this is the only way to relieve himself of the eye. As the narrator craziness increases throughout the story, one can see how the eye of the old

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