Download Short Story Essay Project

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Student’s Name
AP English Literature
Ms. Becker
October 21, 2012
The Red Death: The Great Equalizer in Life and Art
Throughout history, societies that were ruled by monarchies were made up of two groups of
people: the elite aristocracy and the vast population of peasants. America was founded in part to escape
such a society, and once democracy was established, the idea of a middle class began to emerge as a
reality. The early nineteenth century American writer, Edgar Allan Poe, often criticized the British
aristocracy because of their elitist belief that they deserved a better life than the millions of peasants.
Poe sets his short story, “The Masque of the Red Death,” during one of the terrible plagues of Europe in
a kingdom ruled by the arrogant Prince Prospero. Through this setting, Poe questions the elitism of a
monarchy that believed it was so above the rest of society that it could even escape death. Poe’s
message, that wealth and power will not protect a person from death, develops through the contrasting
detail and characterization that distinguish the wealthy Prospero from the masses, the ominous and
Gothic setting, the irony of Prospero’s seclusion, and the allegorical elements of the story. Furthermore,
beneath his primary political message, Poe’s allusion to Prospero from Shakespeare’s play The Tempest
and the bizarre dream-like imagery of the story suggest a secondary message about the artist’s attempt
to defy death through the immortality of art.
“The Masque of the Red Death” opens with detailed description of the surroundings, the plague,
and the character of Prince Prospero. Poe describes the plague in great detail to show how horrible the
suffering of the victims was. “The scarlet stains upon the body and especially the face of the victim, were
the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow man” (Poe). On the
other hand, Prince Prospero is characterized as the “happy and sagacious” leader who completely
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ignores the suffering of his people. “When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his
presence a thousand hale and lighthearted knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the
deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys” (Poe). Despite the suffering of the people all around
him, Prospero isolates himself with his select few friends and celebrates with a masked ball. “It was a
voluptuous scene, that masquerade” (Poe). Poe contrasts the setting of Prospero’s lavish celebration
with the descriptions of his people suffering outside the castle walls to show his utter lack of concern for
them and his belief that his power and money will protect him from the plague.
Prospero’s allegorical celebration is portrayed through three main elements that develop the
suspense and an omen of impending death. First, the iron-gated wall that surrounds Prospero’s abbey
symbolizes his elitism. “A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers,
having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave
means neither of ingress or egress” (Poe). The iron, massy hammers, and bolts suggest Prospero’s belief
in his superiority over the people of his kingdom, his attempt to keep them out, and his disregard for
their lives. The wall also represents the final threshold to death that Prospero ironically sets up for
himself. Inside the walls is Prospero’s lavish palace decorated for the masquerade. This is where the
second main symbol can be found—the rooms. “But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held.
There were seven—an imperial suite” (Poe). The first six rooms are different colors, symbolizing the
seven ages of man from Shakespeare’s As You Like It, or more generally from the stages of life that we
all pass through. The guests walk through each of the rooms, representing their lives, until they reach
the black room. “The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all
over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue”
(Poe). The guests do not enter this last room because something about it disturbs them. The color black
symbolizes death, and the presence of a “gigantic clock of ebony” in the room is an omen of their death
(Poe). The third main element of Poe’s allegory is the clock. Poe describes the reaction of the guests to
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the clock: “[W]hile the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the
more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation”
(Poe). Each time the clock chimes, the guests become very anxious that this is their final moment. The
clock symbolizes their lives ticking down and the inevitable approach of death. Poe’s allegorical
portrayal of the iron-gated wall, the rooms, and the clock help to build the suspense of the story, as
Death approaches the Prince and his guests.
Although this may seem like a simple medieval horror story, deeper inspection of the allegorical
significance of the Red Death and the irony reveal Poe’s political purpose. In discussing the political
purpose of literature, Thomas Foster observes, “The world contains many things, and on the level of
society, part of what it contains is the political reality of the time . . . That’s why political and social
considerations often find their way onto the page in some guise, even when the result doesn’t look
terribly political” (Foster 114). As an American living at a time when the English aristocracy still
threatened to exert its influence, Poe’s criticism and warning to the aristocracy appears in Prospero’s
meeting with the Red Death. As the suspense reaches its climax, the mystery guest is described, “The
figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask
which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse”
(Poe). This guest, similar to the Grim Reaper figure, is an allegorical figure of Death. He is referred to as
the Red Death, suggesting the terrible plague that has devastated Prospero’s kingdom. When the Red
Death appears, Prince Prospero and his guests all face their death. Despite Prospero’s attempt to avoid
the plague, he and his guests inevitably succumb to it. “And now was acknowledged the presence of the
Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revelers in the bloodbedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall” (Poe). In the beginning,
Prospero believes that he can escape death because of his wealth and power. He tries to seclude himself
with his guests in his abbey, but ironically Death finds them within their own elite walls. Poe’s use of
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irony emphasizes the arrogance of Prospero’s attempt to escape Death, and thus connects to Poe’s
greater purpose of critiquing the aristocracy.
In addition to Poe’s political concerns, he was also interested in the creative process and the
purpose of art. In “The Masque of the Red Death” these two interests merge in the allegorical
manifestation of Death and the allusion to Shakespeare’s character Prospero from his play The Tempest.
Just as Death is the great equalizer for all classes of people, Death also becomes the force of nature that
the artist seeks to defy through his work of art in order to achieve a form of immortality. In the process,
the artist assumes an arrogance of creative power. The presence of this artistic arrogance appears
through the allusion to Shakespeare’s character Prospero. Like Prince Prospero, Prospero from The
Tempest is secluded, though against his will, but he uses his authority as duke and his magic as a
sorcerer to control the people in his secluded world and his surroundings. Another important
connection to understand is that Shakespeare’s Prospero is famous for his final speech calling on his
audience to recognize the power of dramatic art, “Now I want / Spirits to enforce, art to enchant, / And
my ending is despair, / Unless I be relieved by prayer, / Which pierces so that it assaults / Mercy itself
and frees all faults. / As you from crimes would pardon’d be, / Let your indulgence set me free”
(Shakespeare, The Tempest Epilogue). Prospero asks the audience to free him by applauding, thus
suggesting the emphasis on the audience’s reception of the message, rather than on the artist. Likewise,
in Poe’s story, Prospero does not prosper, but it is the message about social justice and equality that
outlives even Poe the artist.
Poe’s Prospero also alludes to Shakespeare’s Prospero in the way he creates his own dream-like
surroundings, reflecting the imaginative process of the artist. Poe’s vivid use of imagery reflects a
dream-state to the masquerade that Prospero creates. “There were delirious fancies such as the
madman fashions. There was much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre,
something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the
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seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these --the dreams --writhed in and
about, taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of
their steps” (Poe). This vivid imagery reflects the power of language as an art form to manipulate reality,
which is exactly what Prospero the sorcerer does in The Tempest and what Prince Prospero attempts to
create in his castellated abbey—an extravagant safe haven from the pestilence of his kingdom.
However, the two Prospero characters differ in one important respect, and this is an important concept
of intertextuality that Foster explains in Chapter 6, “Shakespeare also provides a figure against whom
writers can struggle, a source of texts against which other texts can bounce ideas” (Foster 42). While
readers sympathize with Shakespeare’s Prospero in the end because of his banishment to the island by
his own brother, readers do not sympathize with Prince Prospero, because his elaborate seclusion is
purposefully chosen to protect himself, while ignoring the masses of people in his kingdom.
Furthermore, literary critic Kermit Vanderbilt explains the artistic message in the story, “Poe is writing a
fable of the imagination striving to control and transform the corrosive elements of nature and to gain,
through immortal beauty, the artist’s triumph over death” (Vanderbilt 382). What triumphs in the story
is not Prince Prospero, but Poe’s artistic message—that this work of art and its political warning will
outlast all arrogant human attempts to defy mortality.
Prince Prospero is the typical representative of the selfish elite who believe they have a divine
privilege to a superior life, even if it requires the sacrifice of other people. When Poe wrote his story, he
was addressing the arrogance of the European aristocracy as a warning to a new America to avoid such
corruption. Poe’s use of irony suggests the reality of death that will inevitably catch up with all
individuals, often when least expected. The contrasting detail distinguishes the wealthy Prince from his
suffering subjects, implying the injustice of class division. Most important, the allegorical elements—
such as the gate, suggesting the arrogant attempt to escape death; the different colored rooms,
suggesting the stages of life that all humans pass through; and the clock, representing the ticking away
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of life—combine with the irony and contrasting detail to develop the idea that death equalizes all
humans. However, Poe also comments on the writer’s endeavor to defy mortality through artistic
expression. Poe’s allusion to Shakespeare’s Prospero and the dream-like imagery in the descriptions of
Prospero’s abbey demonstrate this power of artistic expression. While Poe’s political message warns the
aristocracy, as well as modern politicians and Hollywood stars, that ultimately all humans will face the
reality of death, his artistic message comments on the power of art to continue to pass on that warning.
Ironically, it is not Prince Prospero who evades Death; instead, it is the warning resulting from his
arrogance that transcends death through art to live on. Death is the great equalizer, and all the riches in
the world will not save anyone from this unavoidable fate, and it is only through such literary
expressions as Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death” that we have the power to leave an eternal
message against such injustice in society.
Works Cited
Foster, Thomas. How to Read Literature Like a Professor. New York: Harper Perennial. 2003.
Poe, Edgar Allen. “The Masque of the Red Death.” http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/POE/masque.html
Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. http://www.bartleby.com/46/5/61.html
Vanderbilt, Kermit. “Art and Nature in ‘The Masque of the Red Death.’” Nineteenth Century Fiction. Vol
22. No 4. March, 1968: 379-389. http://0-www.jstor.org.skyline.ucdenver.edu/stable/
2932530?seq=4