The Masque of the Red Death

Edgar Allan Poe is by far one of the most influential writers of our time. He is also one of the darkest writers of all time. Poe has always been known for his dramatic and eerie writing style, whose stories are sure to cause a chill to run down your spine while reading one of his short stories or poems. Some of Edgar Allan Poe’s Writings such as “The Masque of the Red death”, “The Raven”, “The Cask of Amontillado”, “The Fall of the House of Usher ” , to name a few of his works, along with a host of other poems and short stories, all seem to have a common theme, death. Edgar Allan Poe became focused on death after enduring a miserable childhood, not to mention him having to witness a significant amount of loss of those close to him. This affected his mind which reflected in his works. One can see that there are patterns and similarities in many of the above mentioned works. However, despite the many similarities, there is one thing that appears to be generally different about Poe’s works. That would be his characters. In class, we have read the short story, “The Masque of the Red Death”. I would like to compare this story to another one of Poe’s Short Stories “The fall of the House of Usher” and look at the similarities of the two stories, and also examine the differences in the two stories, if in any. An Authors literary style is a major part of their writing. The writer has to use certain style in order to bring the reader into what they are trying to convey. It is a goal of a writer to have their readers thinking as their characters do. Poe achieves this magnificently in how he creates the theme in his stories, the setting, the imagery as well as Irony. All these styles are centered on the overall theme about death, and the fact that no matter what we do or don’t do, it is inevitable for everyone. The theme of The Masque of the Red Death reveals that Death is certain to us all one day, and there is nothing that we can do to stop it. In this