Symbolism In The Masque Of Red Death

Summer Reading and Writing Assignment
In “The Masque of Red Death”, a story written by Edgar Allan Poe, there are a lot of literary features used in order to write the story effectively and to create deeper meaning which gives the opportunity for the readers to analyze the text hence making the story a literary text. Even though there are features such as irony used in the story, the main literary features used by the author are symbolism, imagery and descriptive writing.
First of all, there are huge amounts of symbolism used in the story where the major one would be the Red Death. Not only does the red death symbolize death itself but it also symbolizes how unavoidable it is. This is shown through the actions prince Prospero took to avoid getting the plague/death by sealing himself and some other nobles in his palace yet the red death still killed him at the end of the story showing how everything is useless when faced with death. Another symbolism used is prince Prospero and the castle as both symbolizes how hard humans try to avoid death. Prospero tried so hard to

A quote from the story that shows imagery is: “The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse”. This quote is an imagery which provokes the sight of the five senses as the reader can picture the atmosphere at the time in which Prospero saw the red death and also the readers can clearly picture how the red death looked like to Prospero as something truly terrifying hence enabling the readers to picture the whole scene. Even though there isn’t a huge amount of imagery which provokes senses such as smell, there is still enough so that the readers can depict the situation in their heads hence enhancing the reader’s knowledge of the