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Samuel Lopez

Ms. Woelke

Pre-AP English 9A

5 November 2018

In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Masque of the Red Death,” literally, a wealthy

Prince Prospero holds a masquerade shielded away from an ongoing plague infecting and

killing millions just outside of his castle walls. However it is interrupted by an intruder that seems

to be the plague personified. Upon attempting to attack it, Prince Prospero and the revellers all

drop to the ground, killed by the disease they were attempting to survive. Allegorically however,

this story is meant to symbolize how human folly can never escape death, no matter what they

attempt. This is revealed through some characters and objects in the story having a much

deeper, symbolic meaning.

Being introduced at the start of the story, readers learn about the Prince Prospero, who

himself is a symbol of human folly and cowards who fear death, even though they can never

escape it. An example of this is when he summons “a thousand hale and light-hearted friends”

to escape the disease by “ [retiring] into the seclusion of one of his castellated abbey,” (Poe 1).

On a literal level, this is used to show how the Prince Prospero plans on escaping this disease

of mass destruction. However, through deeper analysis of the text, this would be used to show

how humans foolishly try to hide away from death behind money, like antibiotics, medicine and

different medications to prolong the inevitable. Towards the end of the story, Prince Prospero

attempts to attack the intruder, however, all of a sudden the “dagger dropped gleaming upon the

sable carpet” then, after a few seconds, “[Prince Prospero] fell prostrate in death,” (Poe 4). On

the surface, this shows how the Prince Prospero wants to vanquish the uninvited guest, only for
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he himself to get infected by the disease he had tried desperately tried to escape from. If read

allegorically, however, Edgar Allen Poe is using the Prince Prospero to show how, no matter

what humanity attempts to ward off death, by attacking it, as Prince Prospero tried, and

defending against the inevitable, just as the courtiers sought out, mankind can never run, or

hide from death. Through the deeper analysis of this short story, Prince Prospero is clearly used

as a symbol of the foolishness of mankind and its venture to escape death.

Being used as the very thing that keeps the deadly plague away from the skin of the

revellers, the welded locks are symbolic of the false sense of protection humanity uses against

death. For example, guests enter the castle with “furnaces and massy hammers” in order to

“[weld] the bolts” (Poe 1). On surface level analysis, this is interpreted as how the prince and his

guests protect against the deadly illness that kills millions just outside of his castle. The symbolic

interpretation, however, uses the welded bolts as an analogy of how humanity seeks everlasting

life by protecting itself using multiple medications and treatments, which in this story, come in

the form of welded bolts and locks. Another example of the welded locks serving as a symbol is

when the clock strikes and the dancers suddenly “became aware of the presence” of an intruder

who had “arrested the attention of no single individual before,” (Poe 3). Literally, this quote

shows how the seemingly secure “welded locks” have failed to keep an intruder outside of the

castle walls, and has now invaded the masquerade. This ties back to the theme, because, this

symbolically shows how humanity may try to use external things to keep themselves healthy,

however, no matter what they do, they will still die because no one can escape death. If

analyzed more carefully, the locks can clearly be shown as a symbol of the protections people

use to ward off death.

The final, and arguably one of the most important, symbol is the seventh room, the

representation of death itself. The first example to show this is when the room itself is described
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to be “shrouded in black velvet tapestries” covering the “carpet of the same material,” and the

windows that were a “scarlet- deep blood color,” (Poe 2). Upon using surface level analysis, the

seventh room is merely a room that is colored oddly and that this quote only exists to describe

the most westward room of the castle. However, when using a deeper analysis, readers will see

that the peculiar colors of this room were chosen for a reason, to resemble the colors of death,

as black is symbolic of death and the end of light, and red is symbolic of blood and death.

Another sample is brought about when Poe mentions that few revellers were “bold enough to

set foot within the precincts” of the ghastly colored room (Poe 2). When reviewed without

significant thought, this would be used to give readers a description of the room through the

perspectives of the revellers, that it looks so horrid that everybody fears to even step into the

room. This relates to the theme, because it symbolically shows how human fear death, and will

do anything to stay away from it, which is foolish, because, eventually, everyone will die..

Through the text, readers learn that the seventh room is symbolic of death through

allegorical-level analysis.

This short-story called “The Masque of the Red Death” can be literally assessed a story

about a Prince who holds a masquerade shielded against an ongoing plague occurring just

outside of the castle walls. However, as the hour hand strikes twelve, a masked figure enters

the scene, seeming to be the disease itself personified, who ends up infecting everyone of the

deadly illness consequently after the Prince attacks the intruder. Through this short horror story

about a Prince who hosts a masquerade protected against a raging disease spread just outside

his castle, readers learn, by use of deep investigation, that death will inevitably overpower

mankind through the use of three symbols; the Prince Prospero, the welded locks and the

seventh room. Edgar Allan Poe writes this dark theme in order to tell readers that no one on

earth can escape death, that you should live life however you wish to, because death comes
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swiftly, striking without warning, just as it had ended the magnificent masquerade in the blink of

an eye.