Metonymy Of Horror

Dark, mysterious, overwrought emotion, inexplicable events; these are all elements of a gothic piece of literature. These elements usually put the readers in a state of terror, fear, and suspense. Edgar Allen Poe is very famous for using these elements in his writing. When he wrote, the reader had a sense of fear and darkness. This captivates audiences and keeps them reading. In The Masque of the Red Death, Edgar Allen Poe uses a castle setting, supernatural events, and the metonymy of horror to convey good gothic literature.
The Masque of the Red Death conveys characteristics of a gothic story such as a setting in a castle. Prince Prospero owns a big castle in which he uses to escape the Red Death as shown in this quote: “This was an extensive
In one of the final scenes, what is believed to be the grim reaper appears at the farthest of chambers from East to West. Death slowly walks through each of the colour themed rooms to get a the red room. Poe writes this in a way that terrifies the reader. As the narrator describes in the story: “... he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber to the purple- through the purple to the green-through the green- to the orange-through this again to the white-and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement had been made to arrest him”(4). Here, Poe uses the slow intense promenade to really horrify the reader and characters. This type of metonymy of gloom and horror greatly suggests The Masque of the Red Death is Gothic literature. In conclusion, Edgar Allen Poe is famous for writing very well gothic literature. He did this because he used the elements of gothic literature like in The Masque of the Red Death. Poe used a castle setting, supernatural events, and the metonymy of horror to captivate the audience and convey a theme of gothic