FREE ESSAY ON THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH BY POE

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH BY POE

In The Masque of the Red Death, Poe leads one event into 
another often. He uses much symbolism, and in the paragraphs below, I will 
show you it. In the first couple of paragraphs however, I will summarize 
the plot and state the theme.
In this plot, Poe begins by talking about the Red Death, basically setting 
the stage for later events in the story. Then, he talks about Prince 
Prospero, which tells the reader that Prospero and the Red Death will have a 
conflict later in the story. Next, Poe gives a short summary of the 
setting, and also mentions that the Red Death was not there. After this, 
Poe gives a description of the rooms. The first room had blue ornaments and 
windows. Poe then makes each room darker until he gets to the seventh, 
which is black. This shows that death is coming to Prospero. Also, in the 
seventh room, the windows are blood red, which also shows that the Red 
Death is coming. Also, the ebony clock keeps on ticking, which is slowly 
setting up the conflict, Prince Prospero vs. The Red Death. Also, the 
color of the wood is also symbolic. Ebony is black, so again death is 
symbolized. At the end, or conclusion, the clock strikes 12, and The Red 
Death makes its appearance, and kills Prospero. In the plot, I believe 
that the talking about the Red Death and Prospero is the introduction, 
because it introduced the two big influences in the story. I also think 
that the descriptions of the rooms is the rising action, because it gives 
the setting for the conflict. The conflict is Prospero trying to avoid the 
Red Death, which is man vs. nature.
The falling action in the story is when Prospero is caught by the Red Death, 
and the conclusion is that he is dead.
The theme of the story is that you cannot escape death no matter how hard 
you try. In the story, Prospero tried to escape it, and look what happened. 
In other words, don't try to run away from death, you're only delaying the 
inevitable.
In the story, the irony was that the man's name was Prince Prospero. His 
last name sounds like prosperous, which means to achieve success. The 
fact that Prospero dies shows that he is not prosperous as his name 
suggests; he is in fact unlucky.