“It was dark before I could get home, and so land at Churchyard stairs, where to my great trouble I met a dead (corpse) of the plague in the narrow ally just bringing down a little pair of stairs.” (pepys). The black death killed a lot of people when it started and you could find bodies everywhere in towns that died from the plague. To stay away from the plague the prince kept people in his palace but eventually the plague got in a killed everyone. In "The Masque of the Red Death," Poe includes gothic horror characteristics to prove you can not escape death.
The inclusion of death was a common practice among romantic writers. In Poe’s story, he utilizes this characteristic with the presence of blood. For instance, while they were all in the palace they were thinking about the sharp pains and dizziness people were getting before they died. The main problem with the disease was, “The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, “ (Poe). All the people were thinking about the death outside of this palace and they were just scared. All the blood is spreading the disease and they think by staying in the
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In Poe's Story, he utilizes those characteristics with the presence of a clock. For instance, in the story when they hear the clock everyone in the palace gets scared and are reminded of the disease and death. while the chimes of the clock rang “ it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation. “ (Poe). The clock eventually lead to an unknown person or creature to show up in the palace who was covered in blood and looked infected. The creature ended up killing everyone the same way that people outside the palace died. They thought they were safe in the palace but the clock reminded them of the death that eventually grasped their