Essay On The Masque Of The Red Death

Do you fear death? It can be a terrifying thing. We can prolong it, but we can not escape it. Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Masque of the Red Death,” is an allegory of how unavoidable death is. There are many visual descriptions in the story to symbolize death. The use of this language and symbolism can be seen in the seventh room, the ebony clock and the fire. In this complex story, Edgar Allan Poe incorporates gob-smacking diction to portray the fearfulness of this “red death” along with vivid imagery of the situation, and symbolism to fully convey that death is inevitable.
Edgar Allan Poe uses exceptional diction to set a fearful and suspenseful mood. This pulls in the reader and allows them to experience the terror of those affected by this “red death.” He uses the word “pestilence” to describe the epidemic killing of millions of people in just a
The “red death” is a symbol of unavoidable death. It can even be compared to the Black Death that killed millions of people during the middle ages, in Europe. Surrounding this “red death,” Poe used objects and color to symbolize the unfortunate outcome in the end. For example, he used the ebony clock to portray time ticking down and reminding the people that like the pendulum swinging in the clock, they can not stop what is to come, but can only wait in fear. Another use of symbolism would be the color use for the rooms; the seven colors symbolize the seven stages in life. First, the color black. This was the seventh room and had contained the ominous, ebony clock. It had been "closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue" (146), and contained "no light of any kind.” This represented the dark and unavoidable death. The other six colored rooms represent the stages of life before death, the growth from a baby to