Symbolic Illness In The Crucible And The Masque Of The Red

Symbolic Illness in The Crucible and The Masque of the Red Death In The Crucible and The Masque of the Red Death, both authors utilize symbolic illness to portray an outbreak of something terrible in society. The novel and short story both provide instances of symbolic illness throughout each of them. In The Crucible, the illness in the story is the “outbreak” of witchcraft in the town of Salem. It all started when Parris saw several girls dancing naked in the forest one night around a fire. Parris also found a pot over a fire with several ingredients in it. Parris assumed that combined with the unusual behavior and the burning cauldron, the devil had to have been involved in the situation. His daughter, Betty, was also in a sort of deep sleep and she would awaken, this led Parris to believe that the girls that were in the forest were conjuring spirits. Parris asked Abigail, who was his niece, if they had conjured spirits in the woods. Abigail was quick to deny the accusation of witchcraft,
The red death is a terrible disease that is quickly destroying the population of the kingdom. Prince Prospero, in an attempt to save his people, “…summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court…” (The Masque of the Red Death, pg. 1) He brought them into his castle, which had strong walls and gates to keep out anyone who was infected, and threw a large party for them after being in the castle for six months. Prospero had entertainers of all sorts there to keep his guest happy and entertained. The red death was symbolic of the disease tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is an infection which can spread to the lungs and causes people to cough up blood. This is most likely why it was called the red death, to symbolize the red blood that was coughed up by those infected with it. The infection would kill its victims within a very short