Avoiding Reality: “The Masque of the Red Death” Analysis Throughout the gothic horror short story, “The Masque of the Red Death”, Edgar Allan Poe illustrates the struggle of an egotistical prince who refuses to face the inevitable reality of death. Through the downfall of the protagonist, Poe establishes the idea that the inability to face reality often leads to the destruction of the mind.
The downfall of the Prince is emphasized by Poe’s use of characterization, setting, and symbolism. In the short story, “Masque of the Red Death”, Edgar Allen Poe uses characterization to illustrate the psychological destruction of the Prince.Throughout the story, Prince Prospero struggles with his anticipation of death, and therefore uses his mind to create different physical illusions of safety. Through Prospero’s spawning of ideas to hide from reality in his castle, Poe explains “The Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hail and lighthearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys.” (420)Besides creating the idea of physical protection, Prince Prospero further creates mental illusions of safety.
As the night goes on, the predetermination of death slowly begins to approach Prospero, despite his earlier attempts to create a physical safety net. Prospero invents intangible reasons to divorce himself from death. However, when the Red Death appears, Prince Prospero’s mind crumbles under the weight of his fear and so begins his psychological suicide. Poe’s description of the prince’s hallucinations proves that the refusal to face reality leads to psychological destruction.Another way Poe portrays the protagonist’s downfall is through the setting.
The story takes place in the safety of Prospero’s castle, which Prospero perceives as protection from the outside world. The castle represents a coping mechanism the Prince uses to hide from the bleakness of death. Prospero believes that hiding in his own castle allows him to escape inevitability. As his life ticks away, Prospero constructs a physical manifestation of his life from beginning to end in the 7 doors.In his vivid depiction of the chambers themselves, Poe explains, “That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue—and vividly blue were its windows.
The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange --the fifth with white --the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries. ” (421) Poe’s description of each of the 7 chambers, starting from the east and ending in the west each symbolizes a stage of human life.
The blue chamber which was farthest to the east, represented the creation of life or rebirth, purple embodies the begging of life, the green represents youth, orange resembles the autumn of life, white suggests the idea of aging, violet symbolizes the beginning of death, and the black chamber which was furthest to the west denotes death. The final method by which Poe describes his overarching tenet are the symbolic phases of Prospero’s psychological death. The chiming of the clock symbolizes the passing moments of one’s life and the approach of death: The stroke of midnight, signifies psychological death for Prospero.Poe attempts to convey a sense of anxiety and nervousness with the tonal rhythm of the clock.
He writes “And anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away- they have endured but an instant- and a light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart” (424). The clock creates the idea of fear and shows the time for sanity running out.
Once the clock strikes midnight Prospero’s psychological battle for survival is lost, resulting in the end of his life. The doors symbolism of stages of life demonstrates the downfall of the Prince. Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Masque of Red Death” about a wealthy, mercenary Prince’s denial of reality parallels to the modern world we live in today. Society offers humans many ways to escape or hide from reality, allowing a person to view the world from the perspective they want to view it from.
While there are natural ways to cope with reality such as listening to music, or getting lost in a novel, human’s tend to overuse the unnatural and rather deadly coping mechanisms such as drugs and alcohol, for they create a chemically altered state of mind. The story, “The Masque of Red Death” is about the psychological struggle of facing reality and the use of the mind to allow a person to feel exempt from it. Poe’s conveys the overall message of using distractions to hide from an inescapable reality can later cause the desolation of the mind.
