Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career. His famous works are: "The Black Cat", "The Masque of the Red Death", "The Fall of the House of Usher" etc.

Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: introduction, exposition, development of the events, climax, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up the recipe and add some spice.

Introduction

It's the Red Death! To the castellated abbey, quick!

The story's set up in the first two paragraphs. First, we meet the Red Death, the horrible, hideous, loathsome disease that's ravaging the countryside. Then we meet Prince Prospero, whose countryside and peasant folk it is that are being ravaged. Prince Prospero has retreated to his castellated abbey and shut himself in with his friends. We're now ready to move on to the main action of the story. But why do we get the feeling that the Red Death and Prince Prospero are going to meet up at some point?

Exposition

Prospero throws a masquerade ball

It's a ball, and what a ball it is! Prospero's decision to throw a masquerade ball is what kicks off the action of the story, and tension builds as we learn the details of the party. Every weird little thing we learn about – the strange layout of the suite, the ghastly look of the black room, the giant clock that ominously tolls the hour and makes everyone laugh nervously. Then Poe's descriptions of the wild "dancing dreams" (the partiers) add a sense of frantic frenzy. Something's got to happen…

Development of the events

Begads, he's besprinkled with the scarlet horror!

A creepy new guest mysteriously shows up in a Red Death costume and starts stalking around. At midnight, no less. At this point, you can cut the tension with a knife. Everybody's scared, but it's uncertain as to what will happen. Prospero orders the guest arrested but nobody dares to take a step, including Prospero himself. The guest makes his way ominously to the black room…

Climax

Prince Prospero faces death…and dies.

Prospero's charge after the "spectral figure" brings the story to its highest moment of tension: the moment of epic confrontation, when the Red Death turns around to face Prospero. It doesn't last long, since Prospero falls down and dies immediately. Now we're rushing towards the end of the story, and things do not look good.

Denouement

Why do these halls suddenly look so blood-bedewed?

Of course we know what happens now: everybody dies. And gets their blood all over Prospero's beautiful fabrics. The revelers die, the clock dies, the candles die, and the party's over. And so is the story.

Conclusion

"And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all"

Need we say more?

A castle cut off from the world, in a kingdom struck by a plague

The story is set in Prince Prospero's luxurious "castellated abbey" (which is just a fancy way of saying it's an abbey built up with the fortifications of a castle), hidden somewhere in his kingdom.
The story's main action takes place in an elaborate suite of seven colored rooms within the abbey, where Prospero holds the masquerade ball. The suite, which Prospero designed, consists of seven rooms that run in a line from east to west. Roughly a line, at least – as the narrator tells us, their alignment is actually rather irregular, so that from any given room you can only see into one other room.
The most memorable detail of the suite, of course, is that each room has a different "color theme." The wall hangings, the decorations, and even the windows of a given room are all one color. The first room in the suite – the farthest room to the east – is blue, the second is purple, the third is green, the fourth is orange, the fifth is white, and the sixth is violet.
The seventh room – the room farthest to the west – is special. It's hung in all black, but its windows are a deep blood red. There's also a huge, threatening clock in it, which eerily chimes every hour and makes everyone's hair stand on end. So between that and the color scheme, you might as well think of the black room as the Horrifying Room of Death, which it turns out to be anyway.
Now we can all agree that the suite is seriously cool, but why does Poe make such a big deal out of it? After all, the story's not even five pages, yet Poe spends at least a quarter of it just describing the setting. Why? I believe it's because the setting is the most important thing in the story. But how could that be? Aren't the really important things in a story the plot and the characters?
Not in this case. Remember that Poe's main goal in writing was to produce an effect in his reader. The effect is what matters: everything that gets put in the story gets put in for the sake of the effect. And it seems to us like Poe's most important tool for creating his effect in "Masque of the Red Death" is the setting. It's all about the atmosphere. And the setting is what you're most likely to remember about this story, isn't it?
So how does the setting create the effect Poe wants (most basically, fear)? Firstly, there's the abbey, which is cut off from the world. Although it's supposedly safe, the people in it are actually trapped inside. There's something threatening about that sense of confinement. If anything should happen, there's no way out. And the suite itself is buried somewhere deep within the bowels of the abbey. So far as we know, it doesn't have any windows onto the outside world.
Secondly, we're not just trapped in any castellated abbey; we're trapped in Prince Prospero's castellated abbey. And Prince Prospero seems to be insane. Would you want to be locked up with him? Further, everything about the suite seems to reflect Prince Prospero's madness: the lack of alignment, the exaggerated color scheme, the creepy lighting effects, that really ghastly black room. At the very least that's enough to make us uncomfortable and a little weirded out. At the extreme – the ghoulish black room – it's actively frightening.
Thirdly, the color scheme of the suite has to mean something. The black room practically screams death. Shouldn't the other rooms mean something too? The rooms symbolize "birth and death" – just about the most profound and weighty thing you could imagine – and here everyone is having a party? A party by definition is supposed to be fun and frivolous. Something doesn't feel quite right about that.
Finally, there's something else about the setting that feels disorienting. In many respects, it feels more like a dream world – or a product of madness – than reality.And on that subject, it's worth noticing something else. We have no idea where Prince Prospero's kingdom is, or when the story is set.Poe gives us no clues. It's as if Poe wants to keep us from making any ties to the real world at all.