How Does The Colored Room Symbolize In The Masque Of The Red Death

Death Comes for Everyone

The Black Death in Europe caused around 50 million people to die. Prince Prospero is living in his castle having a good time while others are outside suffering from the Red Death. The are all having a good time care free because the castle supposedly has no way in or out. A masked person comes into the castle that isn’t supposed to be there. This masked character ends up killing Prince Prospero. Edgar Allen Poe uses the element of Symbolism in “The Masque of the Red Death” through description of the seven colored rooms, the clock, and the castle.
The first example of symbolism in The Masque of the Red Death is the seven colored rooms. “These windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened”(76). “The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet- a deep blood color” (77). The seven room represent the different stages of our lives going from birth to death.

“At each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert”(77). “The giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused revery or meditation”(77). “After the lapse of sixty minutes (Which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the time that flies)”(77).The clock is a symbol of death. The clock sits in the Black room which is the one of death. When the clock chimes every hour it's reminding everyone that their lives are going away and death is