Literary Analysis of The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe Essay Example

In the story “The Masque of the Red Death”, Edgar Allan Poe uses vivid description to describe the setting, which is directly interacted with by the characters. 

Poe uses a lot of description. He uses it to describe the setting and the people. Paragraph 4 uses a lot of descriptive language. He is describing the rooms to give the reader a better idea of what the castle looks like, therefore creating the setting. But, is all of the information necessary? Later in the story, it mentions how the “red death” or the masked figure moves from “...the blue chamber to the purple, through the purple to the green, through the green to the orange, through this again to the white, and even thence to the violet” which Poe described in paragraph 4, ending at the western or black chamber. The window of the black chamber has blood-tinted, deep scarlet red window panes. Because of this chilling pairing of colors, very few guests are brave enough to venture into the seventh room. This gave foreshadowing earlier in the story that something bloody or something with the Red Death might happen in that room. 

Another important aspect of this story is an ebony clock, which is in the black chamber. A large ebony clock stands in it and ominously chimes each hour. Whenever an hour strikes, everyone stops talking or dancing and the orchestra stops playing. Once the chiming stops, everyone immediately resumes the masquerade and the orchestra tells themselves “...that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion,” even though the next time the clock chimes, there’s “the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.” 

In paragraph 2, you learn more about Prince Prospero. You learn how he is strange and eccentric, but respected. Prospero loves his friends, which is why he tries to control fate by “trapping” 1000 of his “hale” (strong and healthy) friends at his castle for the masquerade ball. He brought entertainment. Buffoons, improvisatori, ballet-dancers, musicians, as well as the two most important, Beauty and wine. “Without, was the ‘Red Death'.