Compare The Red Death And The Fall Of The House Of Usher

The fear of death grows inside a person that yearns to live their life to the fullest, though their fear is always lingering in the back of their minds and prevents the way they go about their life. Edgar Allan Poe addresses this fact in his two short stories, “The Masque of the Red Death” and “The Fall of the House of Usher”. The fear of death is evident in his characters, causing them to live their lives based on that constant panic. “The Masque of the Red Death” includes the main character, Prince Prospero, who holds a masquerade ball with close doors in hopes of avoiding the plague sweeping over his community. Throughout the story all of the masqueraders feared death by the plague, and did their best to avoid it by hiding behind closed doors and distracting themselves with celebration for months. “With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure” (Poe, 41). Prince Prospero provided himself and others with luxuries in order to avoid the death
Usher influences the narrator to feel the same fear he has. “Sleep came not near my couch-while the hours waned and waned away. I struggled to reason off the nervousness which had dominion over me” (Poe, 34). Towards the end of the story, the narrator comes very close to being as paranoid as Roderick is towards death. Usher had such an intense fear towards death, that when discussing that fear made the narrator nervous. As a result of the fear Usher has towards death, he essentially dies from that fear. Roderick didn’t fear dying itself, but how he would die. While speaking to the narrator, he speaks about how he accepts that he will die because death is inevitable. He fears the incident that will initiate his death, he fears fear (Poe,