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Symbols In The Masque Of The Red Death

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Edger Allen Poe is an incredible author of horror. His story, The Masque of the Red Death, was an amazing chiller about a party that was ended by a disease. Throughout the kingdom a disease is spreading from citizen to citizen, killing each one who possesses it so the king invites those closes to him to a party where no one can leave and will be safe from the disease but yet in hindsight they were locking themselves in with the disease. Throughout the course of this hair-raising story, several symbols are represented to array Poe’s theme of death. Symbols such as the seven colored rooms, the clock, and lastly the Red Death are all symbols that are displayed to help get Poe’s notion across. To begin, the seven rooms at the gathering were all a significant part of the story, but more so the blue and black room. Based on the text it states, “…in blue-and vividly blue were in its window” (Poe, 421). The text also states, “The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all …show more content…

The entire reason for this party was to defend the king and all those close to him from it, but there is no escaping the disease. The text states, “His vesture-was dabbed in blood-and his brow, with all the features with all the feature of a face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror” Poe, 425). The Red Death was a “walking corpse” looking figure that appeared out of nowhere during the course of the party; and how instantly makes his way toward the block room. All those who attended the shindig secretly feared the moving figure as it made its way to the room. The king did not stand for this so he planned to kill the figure, but yet the figure killed him. The citizens of the party then confronted the figure with rudeness and violence and yet the figure killed them too. This tells you that the “Red Death” actually represents Death himself and no matter how hard you try you can’t escape from

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To explain, Zapf writes, “In a parodistic reversal of the Biblical Act of Creation, the seven differently colored rooms, which are arranged from East to West, and in which the masque takes place, are composed in the form of a symbolic teleology of human life which leads from the color blue to the color black, from light to darkness, from creation to destruction.” Zapf realizes that the order and rooms represent human life itself. From rooms blue to black, light to dark, creation to death; this is the course of human life and the outcome of the people at the party. From carefree partiers to dead in the night, the perpetual tick of the clock to the stroke of the hour, rooms light to dark, blue to black, creation to death— each of these things are different yet one in the same. Poe puts the clock and the seven chambers in the story to disseminate piece by piece the overall purpose and theme.

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