The whole analysis

A short story under analysis is entitled “The Masque of the Red Death” and written by Edgar Allan Poe. He was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered as a 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 outstanding American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career. One of E. Poe’s themes is the question of death. His famous works are: "The Black Cat", "The Masque of the Red Death", "The Fall of the House of Usher", “The Pit and the Pendulum” etc.

"The Masque of the Red Death" is the story about the plague which is called the "Red Death" and it kills people. Prince Prospero hides from it in his abbey. Once he has a masquerade ball and guests notice a mysterious person. That's the "Red Death". Prince begins to run away but it chases him and he dies. And all his guests also die.

Speaking about the title of the story it’s rather catchy and it persuades the reader to continue his acquaintance with this intriguing story. Moreover, the first title for the story was “The Mask of the Red Death” that puts the emphasis on the mask/costume that the Red Death wears to the ball.  But the masquerade itself is what makes the biggest impression in this story.

The basic theme of the story is devoted to stating the fact that no man or woman can evade the death. And many of us resort to extreme measures to postpone entering the “seventh room” as long as possible.

The idea of the story is to show that all people are created equal but Prospero and his courtiers abandon the rank and shut the iron gate of their refuge so that no one from the outside can get in. “The external world could take care of itself” the narrator says, reporting on Prospero’s attitude of complacency and neglect. “In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure.

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.

From the point of view of presentation the text is the 3^rd person narrative. Poe uses this technique  to make the story more objective and free from any personal attitude for the readers to evaluate the actions and sayings of the personages and come to their own conclusions. The contextual type of the story under consideration is the author’s narrative description.

The characters we meet in Poe’s literary work are the prince Prospero (the protagonist of the story) and the figure of the Red Death (the antagonist).  

Edgar Allen Poe presents a contrary gallery of the main characters which entices the reader to speculate. What draws my attention is the fact that I've found a lot of similarities between Poe and his character Prince Prospero. The Prince is seemed to be a personification of Poe in this thrilling story. Edgar Allen Poe is known to be rather eccentric and odd. He had a taste for macabre and bizarre and we run into the princes' qualities which coincide with the author's ones. Moreover, like Poe the character is reminiscent of a young man from a wealthy and distinguished family.

      Further looking at the character Prince Prospero, the name comes to mind. Prospero is suggestive of the word prosper, which means to do well, or be wealthy; it implies good fortune.

         And we see that it's really the truth. He invites citizens "from among the knights and dames of his court" to be with him in his queer castle. His intent is to evade the death Red Death and to prevent not even himself but also his guests. But despite being so wealthy, noble and respected, he still dies. 

Another powerful character is, without doubt, The Red Death which appears at a masquerade ball: "tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habilements of the grave" strolls through the castle. "His vesture was dabbed in blood and his broad brow, with all the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horrow". "The Red Death had long devasteted the country". Many interpret the story as an allegory of life, because all in all it leads to the so called logical end - to the death. 

I can't but mention the nameless Prospero's guests. We just know that they are of noble blood and that peasants are locked out, however they also die. 

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 which E. Poe also does. 

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

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?

In order to portray characters and also to describe the setting and the main idea of the story, E.A. Poe uses a great variety of lexical, syntactical, phonetic and graphic expressive means and stylistic devises. All of them highlight a horrible and at the same time a tragic atmosphere which is described in the story. 

Among lexical expressive means we can see:

-         Epithets  (scarlet horror, august taste, deep seclusion, voluptuous scene, delirious fancies, gaudy,  fantastic appearance, madman fashion) which are used to characterize the situation in the country and the gorgeous abbey);

-         Metaphors  ( the masquerade license of the night, the brazen lungs of the clock,  the impulse of despair,  the redness and the horror of the blood) shows the atmosphere of  terror in the story;

-         Similes (the Red Death had come like a thief in the night, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused revery or meditation, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly) describes the image of the Red Death and the inner world of the secondary characters;

-         cases of personification (And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay – suggests that the clock was beating like a heart; once the last reveler died, it had no more reason to live; the pestilence raged most furiously abroad – personifying the pestilence as an angry  person makes it seem like it is full of hatred; the courtiers… bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself – shows how the wealthy have no feelings towards the poor and suffering); some examples of personification such as “Time”, “Beauty”, “Darkness”, “Decay”, “Death” have a symbolic meaning and catch reader’s attention;

-         periphrasis (the creation of the prince’s own eccentric, yet august taste) is aimed at revealing the beauty of the castle.

As for the syntactic expressive means and stylistic devices  there cases of  repetition, enumeration and asyndeton in the sentence: “There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there ballet-dancers,  there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine” which stress the image of the castle.

We can see here numerous cases of irony:

The Prince builds a castle to thwart the Red Death. He surrounds the castle with a "lofty wall" and with "gates of iron." The guests "brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave no means of ingress no regress to the sudden despair or of frenzy within." The fortressed castle fails to keep Death out and ironically keeps the guests imprisoned after the Red Death's arrival.

The Prince's purpose is to let his guests forget about death, yet the construction of his Imperial suite, with its "sharp turns" and "novel effects" do little to comfort them. In addition, "the seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the wall...The panes here were scarlet - a deep color."  That seems a strange way to help guests forget about death, but not as strange as the ebony clock that rings ominously each hour, causing all to cease their merry revels.

Elsewhere, Poe also uses effectively phonetic device alliteration, as in this clause: “His broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror” (broad, brow, besprinkled).

A combination of these expressive means and stylistic devices makes the author’s style highly original and easily recognizable.

From beginning to end, the tone of “The Masque of the Red Death” is grave and serious. It’s ominous: you never quite escape the sense of a looming threat. And it’s dark. Poe sets the tone right away – just at the opening lines: “The Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal – the redness and the horror of blood.”

The language of the story is stylistically colored. There are a lot of literary (high-flown) words such as: pestilence, dissolution, dauntless, sagacious, dominions, summon, courtiers, lofty, resolve, voluptuous etc. They create an official effect which confirm the grand atmosphere of the story.

Taking everything into account, I’d like to underline that E. Poe is a master of short stories who mixes different stylistic devices and expressive means to satisfy the reader’s taste. As for me, I’m really impressed, the story came up to my expectations. I appreciate Poe’s work because I treasure wonderful books and poems. 

Poe’s stories – even his humorous tales and detective stories are populated by amnesiacs and obsessives, by people doomed to remember what they desire only to forget, and are told by madmen and liars and lovers and ghosts. And still, and still, “There is no exquisite beauty”, as Poe reminds us, in Ligeia, “without some strangeness in the proportion…” His works are worth reading!