Romanticism In The Masque Of The Red Death

The gothic period in American history was full of dark themes that reflected the response that romanticism had on individualist literature. Instead of viewing individuals with hope, gothic’s looked at individuals with the potential of evil. This was the source of the macabre styles like fear, greed, and betrayal that came to define the gothic era. One of the defining authors of the era was Edgar Allan Poe who wrote the story Masque of the Red Death with many of the themes of the gothic era in mind. In particular, the story is primarily centered around death and our inability to escape it. In the story, Prince Prospero invites one-thousand of his closest friends to come stay with him in his castle while a disease known as the Red Death revenges the countryside.

Several months later he celebrates by holding a masquerade ball and in preparation for it he decorated the castle. This included an ominous black and room with red windows that contained an ebony clock that made guests stop in their tracks while it chimed. At midnight a stranger dressed in ghoulish attire appears with spots of blood on his face, a mark of a victim of the Red Death. Prince Prospero is so angered that someone would show up to his party with such little levity that he decides to chase him. When he finally confronts the figure, he dies, and the Red Death has finally caught up to the nobles. In these ways, Edgar Allan Poe uses the gothic style in The Masque of the Red Death in order to show how death reveals our true