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Suffering In The Masque Of The Red Death

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Recommended: How does this story reveal aspects of Poe’s life in the masque of red death

There are days when the world feels like it 's falling down in fiery bits and pieces on top of one’s head, and then there are the days when the world is actually falling to pieces. Humans have often constructed their own protective barriers, and carried on amidst what would be deemed apocalyptic circumstances. These circumstances are viewed as having no other purpose other than making life extraordinarily hard and discouraging humanity to continue their existence. Instead, tragedy and suffering through it serves to unite all of the human race by tugging on the heartstrings. Compassion and empathy makes suffering a continually melding experience of humanity. The suffering captured by Edgar Allan Poe throughout his various works is …show more content…

In “The Masque of the Red Death,” Poe describes the nasty symptoms of Ebola. Poe says, “There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men.” The description of the pain and fatality of this disease makes the reader wince by just imagining the agony of the afflicted. Moreover, Poe pens the violent acts people inflict on each other. In “The Black Cat” Poe writes, “Goaded, by the interference, into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain,” when talking about the savage murder of the wife. This narrative is cringe worthy because it would be absolutely excruciating to have an axe driven into one’s skull. Edgar Allan Poe details the nasty specifics of the torture and murder of Fortunato in “The Cask of Amontillado” when Montresor chains Fortunato in the chamber filled with niter and walls up the entrance, torturing and leaving Fortunato to die from whatever lethal element can stop his heart first. . This is brutal because Montresor says, “I heard the furious vibration of the chain. The noise lasted for several minutes, during which, that I might harken to it with the ore satisfaction. I ceased my labor and sat upon the bones.” Montresor listens to his enemy slowly dying. Fortunato then screams and moans for release, but Montresor enjoys the torment of Fortunato, and continues to observe the pain of his

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