Symbolism In The Masque Of The Red Death

Fear: an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat. In the story “Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allen Poe, that's precisely what a majority of Europe's population was experiencing. However, the main characters actions played a major role in his own downfall.
The hidden message in Poe’s allegory is throughout all stages of life, death is inevitable, and if you ignore the sins you have created it only adds to the collapse of our lives. The main character, Prince Prospero has committed the sin of selfishness by alienating him and the higher class society from the horrific infection that today, is known as the Bubonic Plague. The prince was, and I quote, “dauntless and sagacious.” Which means he was determined and intelligent enough to keep on “his people” safe from this catastrophe.
Poe also uses symbols in his allegory like, the clock which is located in the “Black Room”. To me it symbolizes many things. One meaning inevitable death, in color symbolism charts the word death corresponds to the color black. In the story its says, “Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be …show more content…
Each room could represent a different stage in life? Black and Red correspond with the word death so it could be symbolize the last stage in life, The Last Scene. The blue room is the first room so it can symbolize birth. Prince Prospero says, "Who dares?" he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him --"who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him --that we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise, from the battlements!" He starts from the blue and makes his way to the black and red room where he approaches his death. This “masked man” could have killed Prospero because of the sin he

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