Literary Analysis: The Masque Of The Red Death

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH LITERARY ANALYSIS
Good afternoon teachers, today I will show you my oral presentation about "the Masque of the Red Death" written by the American Short Story writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 19, 1809. Edgar lost his mother at an early age. He was then raised by a wealthy Virginia family named Allan, from whom he took his middle name. After winning a writing contest with his story “MS. in a Bottle", Poe became a literary success, winning fame but not fortune. He died in poverty at the age of forty. Today, Poe is recognized as a master of the short story. “The masque of the red death" is a story about a prince named Prospero, which tries to avoid a plague called the

Poe's Concept of Death is as a strong power that is not tangible that ends with people’s lives, no matter what. With the allegory he states that how strong is death's inevitability. He shows us that death is part of our unavoidable fate. Everyone will meet death sometime, no matter who we are or how much we try to avoid it, it will finish with us. As we can see Prospero was powerful and important, he secluded himself in a big castellated abbey with lots of provisions, but as death comes to everyone, he died too. That’s what Poe wants to show us. He makes a personification of death to create the allegory and give us this message, which is really horrible and creepy. It’s a message that haunts us after reading the story. It produces a lasting effect on us, different from all the other elements in the story, which produced an instant effect on us, as the language for example. This message which has the concept of death related with time hits us strong after reading. Because we as readers are also susceptible to the powers of death because our time naturally runs out, so we get closer to the end. This adds obviously to the dark Gothic horror effect. So we can say that the allegory with the theme, and the concept of death and mortality related with the

Personally I've worked with other two selections "The Raven", and "The Cask of Amontillado". In both works the unity of effect can be clearly seen in every aspect or element they have. Tone, mood, characters, rhythm, sounding, etc... The difference between other Poe's works is that this one can be analyzed as an allegory, and Poe once said that he disliked allegories because it lowers the efficiency of the unity of effect, but I started working with it and I analyzed that the allegory and theme gives us a message, that by itself, also is an element that contributes to Poe's theory. so we can appreciate elements that directly contribute to the unity of effect, as the language, and the presence of death throughout the story, and elements that indirectly contribute to the single effect, as characterization and personification, and Poe's concept of death in the theme, because this elements help to construct the allegory and theme, and so they help to produce the Gothic Horror effect. That's why once more everything within the story, contributes to Poe's theory of the Single Effect, supporting my thesis statement that The Language, the Concept of death in the theme, The Characterization and Personification used by Poe plus many other elements, literary devices, and symbols, together they produce an ultimate effect of classic Gothic horror in the