Death

Death is something we all will inevitably face at some point, and none can escape its wrath. Death is one that does not discriminate, takes the rich and the poor, young and the old Edgar Allen Poe’s goal in many of his stories is to draw into one theme and this story is no different.. Edgar Allen Poe In his story “The Masque of the Red Death” shows the theme that no one can escape death in an allegorical way. The first part is life being the masquerade ball and the second being their inevitable demise. The plot, setting and characters are evidence of the theme in focus. Death was not considered an evil force, but something supernatural in which no one can escape. Poe draws us in to this morbid topic we all would like to avoid, but draws us in with details so that we are unable to put it down. This theme of mortality or the inevitability of death holds true in the entirety of the story.

The plot of the story is death and Prince Prospero’s avoidance of it. Poe used the term red death due to the blood escaping from the pores. This fictional disease is similar to the black plague, but instead of it taking a few days to take a life, the red death would only take about a half hour. Because the death toll was so high, Prince Prospero feared his own life. He decided that in order to avoid this plague he would have to hide out in his abbey and bring one thousand friends and some fools with him. When he did this he left the rest of the kingdom to fend on their own . During the guests stay Prospero decided to throw a masquerade ball, to get their minds off of the disaster going on outside. The party went well up until midnight when an uninvited and unexpected guest appeared. It was not possible for someone to come in due to the doors being welded shut after the last guest arrived, which added to the horror of the unexpected guest being there . Prospero then asks his guests to seize the intruder, but no one listens to the request. Prospero begins to chase after the...