Symbolism In The Masque Of The Red Death

An allegory is a story that symbolizes a big thing, such as hope, peace, life and death. The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe is an allegory towards life itself. The biggest indicator of that is the seven differently colored rooms that incorporate Prince Prospero’s “castellated abbey” Other symbolic indicators include the “Red Death” himself, tripods that light the rooms, and finally, the enormous pendulum clock. Prince Prospero creates this abbey and invites 1,000 noble people and their servants to live a carefree life away from the plague (the “red death”) that is haunting everyone on the outside. The abbey consists of seven different rooms, all a different color and downed with a single corresponding window. The first room starts in the east and is colored blue with a blue tinted window, the
These symbolic colors tie into the allegory of life in a few ways. First, the progression of the colors from east to west is much like the colors of the day towards night. Blue is the day, purple, green and orange being dusk, then white, violet, and black being the night. The second way the rooms fit in would be the general progression of life from birth to death. Each room represents a time in a person’s life. When we think about birth, we think about blue and pink for baby boys and girls. When we think about youth, we think of children in elementary school and kindergarten. Adolescence teens growing into healthy adults where things are generally happier and more energetic. After adulthood, you grow older until you find wisdom in age and experiences, but death looms around you. Finally, you die. Most people are scared of death and the deep red color of the window in the final room may well represent the death that the people outside of the abbey are suffering