The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe: Discussion Questions

The Masque of the Red Death
Edgar Allan Poe

1. Explain the unique aspects of the rooms, including how many of them there are and what makes them different?
2. What is the effect of the ebony clocks’ chimes on the assembled guests?
3. The word mad means insane. What is ironic about the narrator’s mention that ‘There are some who would have thought Prospero mad’?
4. What details about the seventh room makes it grotesque in appearance?

5. What does the masked figure walking and its movement through the 7 rooms represent?
6. Why do you think the masked figure is allowed to walk the length of the rooms uninterrupted?

7. List the elements of Gothic Literature apparent in this story:
Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow:

From “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe, published in 1945

FOR the most wild, yet most homely narrative, which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not -- and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburden my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified -- have tortured -- have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror -- to many they will seem less terrible than baroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place -- some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.

From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and, in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure. To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious* dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer* fidelity of mere Man.

sagacious - having or showing keen mental discernment and good judgment gossamer - something extremely light, flimsy, or delicate

8. In the first paragraph, Poe claims that the reader

a. will not want to hear the story
b. *will be angry by what follows
c. will feel the need to leave the room
d. will not believe the story

9. What does the last paragraph explain as how the narrator feels about pets?
a. *A pet has a devotion to man that is hard to explain but can affect humans deeply
b. A pet can test the patience of even the strongest man in the world
c. A pet has little time to be taught important aspects of self-preservation
d. A pet can be a worthwhile investment

10. What is the narrator counting on the readers to do after hearing the story?

A. *Deal with their own pets differently from now on
B. Tell the proper authorities about the evil nature of the beast
C. Calmly make sense of the story without the supernatural events
D. Explain to relatives what happened in dramatic fashion