Essay
English
Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 - October 7, 1849) – an American writer, poet, literary critic and editor, a representative of American Romanticism. He has received the greatest popularity for his "dark" stories. He is a creator of the forms of modern detective. Poe's creativity contributed to the emergence of the genre of science fiction.
"Mask of the Red Death" is the story of Edgar Allan Poe, written and published in 1842. The story begins with description of a terrible disease called the Red Death, devastating the country. Prince Prospero did not want to die from the disease; he gathered a thousand of his close courtiers and took refuge in a remote and isolated monastery built by his project. The Prince and his cronies bricked the ins and outs, desiring to live there until the end of the disease. Prince took care of everything: there were musicians, dancers, servants, food and luxury rooms.
Prince Prospero, fleeing from the epidemics, orders to surround the abbey with a stone wall and iron gates: "The courtiers went in, brought the forges and weighty hammers, riveted bolts from the inside." Trying to hide behind the wall with iron gates because of the spread of infection is consonant with aspiration of the body during epidemics to shut from the outside world, clog holes. Body as a fortress besieged by disease is a metaphor typical for the Western cultural tradition.
After six months the prince organized a masquerade ball. People feasted and rejoiced. Guests wore different masks and costumes to take part in the dancing. The setting is strange and wild. A masquerade is held in a series of seven rooms, each of which is decorated in different colors. Suddenly a new disguised guest appeared, he has worn a cloak splashed with blood and a mask of the corpse. He was similar to the Red Death. At this moment, Poe introduced a complication into the plot. As the writer writes, "this figure was tall and thin, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the underworld." By writing this, he significantly increases the intrigue in the plot.
The participants of the masquerade are afraid. The guest slowly goes through the frightened revelers. "Slowly and solemnly, as if trying to better withstand the role," paced "back and forth among the waltzing". When Prospero saw the guest, he ordered to capture and expose him, so that "we know whom we have to hang at sunrise, from the wall!” Nobody dares to obey the orders of Prospero. Even Prospero shows a temporary fear. When this "Guest" passes by the prince on his way through the rooms to a dark room, which is located at the end of the corridor, the prince runs after him in a rage with a dagger. Prince pulled out his dagger and set off in pursuit, but at the threshold of the black room the stranger suddenly turned and stared at the Prince. Prospero screamed and fell dead.
The Prince Prospero’s death shocked the crowd. In desperation, they rushed to a black room to capture the offender 'guest'. The revelers become horrified when they find that this serious and burial costume is empty. The story reaches its climax of horror. All people die. People began to fall and die, and everywhere is gloom, doom and the Red Death. It's not just the solution of the conflict, its complete destruction at the end of a common tragedy.
The meaning of death as something incomprehensible and manageable not by a man but another powerful force is emphasized in the short story "The Red Mask of Death". Poe described the fate from which neither the poor nor the rich can escape. People hiding from the plague, the Red Death, become its victims. The Red Death extends its dominion over all.
Narrative point of view. "Mask of the Red Death", without hesitation, can be called the "theatrical" narrative of Poe. First, the story is not told in the first and third person, the story of Prince Prospero and his duel with Death is told by the impersonal, omniscient and omnipresent narrator - a case for Poe is extremely rare. The storytelling gives way to "showing», if we use the terms of American literary theorists. Secondly, title of the story is associated with the theater - Masque of the Red Death, and Prince’s masquerade in the besieged by "plague" abbey becomes its central episode. In the story, as already noted, there is no character-narrator, who can describe his feelings. But the absence of a subjective point of view on what is happening allows us to see behind the images and metaphors the mechanism of unconscious symbolization - the embodiment of disease symptoms in the sign system of the story.
Setting of the story. The story takes place in the era of knights and castles. The setting suits to the horror story. It starts inside the Prince Prospero’s luxury “castellated abbey”. He is hidden somewhere in the "deeply secluded" place of his kingdom. Prospero and his chosen people are hidden behind the welded and closed doors. No one can enter or leave. It is party time inside it, while everything is dying outside because of the Red Death.
The story takes place in a complex set of seven colored rooms inside the abbey, where Prospero organizes a masquerade ball. The location for lighting is interesting too. All the rooms have windows on both sides, the candles lit, placed outside the windows in the hallways. The light shines through the windows to the rooms and creates a pretty effect. The color scheme of each of these rooms is described in details. The wall hangings, jewelry and even the windows of each room are combined in one color theme. The first room - the farthest room to the east - is blue, the second - purple, the third - green, the fourth - orange, the fifth – white and the sixth - purple. The epicenter of the horror is the seventh room - the farthest room to the west. It has black tapestries and windows in a red color of the blood. There is also a huge, menacing black clock in it that eerily rings every hour. It is not accidental that here, in the seventh room occurs a final duel of Prospero with his uninvited guest whose appearance again is easily recognizable: the face and forehead covered with horrible red spots, apparel – a shroud spattered with blood.
The story contains many details of the setting, as it seems to be vital to this horror story and to create the effect of horror. The disgusting black room where Prospero dies because of the Red Death is painted in a real horrifying manner. It practically calls for death.
Character development. Prince Prospero apparently is a bad ruler who leaves his people to die of 'Red Death ", when he is locked, along with his chosen courtiers and friends in the "castellated abbey" to avoid the death. He prefers to indulge to masquerades and music within his safe castle while the Red Death is spreading chaos on the miserable people left outside. His basic approach to the situation is summed up in the following extract from the story:
The outside world can take care of them. At the same time it was silly to grieve, or to think. The Prince provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, improvisers, ballet dancers and musicians, there was beauty and wine.(2)
Prospero does not want to die. Maybe he knows that he can not escape death. He also knows that he can not control the Red Death which spreads in his kingdom. Half of his people are dead. At that moment, perhaps, it was a desperate attempt to avoid the disease. His idea to entertain seems mad while his people die outside. More likely is that he did everything to avoid the negative psychological consequences, being cloistered in a secluded monastery for several months. In some ways, it is a human desire to overcome death at any cost. It may be silly, but nobody wants to accept this truth. One might think that there is something heroic in the stupidity of Prospero. Poe says that the Prince Prospero was happy, fearless and sagacious. It is not easy to be happy and "Fearless" in order to face the deadly plague. He knows that it is impossible to escape death, but he tries anyway. He can fight enemies in a physical form, but he can not defeat the death, which comes in a material form. I believe that Prospero symbolizes the humanity because of his quest for life.
CONCLUSION
Red Death is perceived as the biggest evil in the kingdom of Prospero. It is associated with death. Obviously, it can not be touched or captured that Prospero and his people realized at the end. It does not say a word, but leaves after it a complete destruction. The theme is loud and clear. Edgar Allen Poe is talking about the invincibility of the death in this story. The death is practically in every part of the story. Prospero and his people are trying to ignore and avoid the death, but people are mortal. Ultimately, death has come to their doorstep.
Works cited
Edgar Allan Poe. "The Masque of the Red Death". Edgar Allan Poe Society online, 1850.
