Stylistic analysis of The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. He was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts. Poe's parents died before he was three, and he was raised by an uncle and aunt. He published "Tamerlane and Other Poems" at 18, then became a magazine editor and writer in several eastern cities, contributing poems, stories and literary criticism. His vivid, surrealistic, often macabre tales, such as "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Cask of Amontillado," were complemented by detective stories ("Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Purloined Letter"), a genre he invented. His poem "The Raven" (1845) made him famous. Alcohol, the bane of his irregular and eccentric life, caused his death at age 40. He died after a drinking spree in Baltimore while en route to his second wedding.
In 1842, Edgar Allan Poe wrote a short story called “The Masque of the Red Death.” It certainly seems as if Poe's conception of the story was helped along by accounts of the Bubonic plague, also known as the "black death." Taking on the form of an allegory, “The Masque of the Red Death” portrays many symbolic meanings appear to be hidden to the reader. With these symbolic meanings, we can unlock the hidden message in the story that proves that no one can escape death. In the beginning of “The Masque of the Red Death”, Edgar Allan Poe describes a horrific disease that has plagued the country. Its name is the “Red Death”. The author employs a number of epithets to enhance the fatal effect of the pestilence (the redness and the horror of blood; scarlet stains). It causes its victims to endure “sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores”. Everyone who encounters the “Red Death” dies. In fear of being infected by this disease, the main character, a prince named Prospero