What Is The Message In The Masque Of The Red Death

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“The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe is a short story that is categorized under gothic literature. In the story, a young prince decides to lock himself inside his castle to avoid getting infected by the ongoing plague. He invites a few hundred friends to stay with him only because he does not want to be alone in his giant castle. To prevent his guests from getting bored, Prince Prospero decides to have a masquerade ball. Everyone is enjoying themselves when all of a sudden, as the deafening clock strikes midnight, they notice a stranger standing within the crowd. This news is shocking because they have been locked inside the castle for months now. Shortly after noticing the stranger, everyone of the guests die. This short story, “The Masque of the Red Death”, by Edgar Allan Poe, has a hidden message that explains that no one can escape death, no matter how hard they try. Prince Prospero attempts to cheat death by locking himself inside his castle to avoid getting infected by the plague. The prince …show more content…
The black and creepy clock is the prince's’ own ticking timebomb and once the clock strikes midnight, Prince Prospero would take his last breath. Every time the clock hits an hour, it is a constant reminder that the occupants of the castle that their lives are slowly drifting away as they dance the night away. The guests stopped every time it struck another hour as if to take in the fact that they just let another hour of their lives pass by. That is why “at each lapse of an hour...the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions...”(Poe 457), and waited until the clock stopped its chiming. When the clock finally struck midnight, the “uneasy cessation” grew bigger and bigger. It is then that the crowd “became aware of the presence of a masked figure...”(Poe 459) whom they had not seen before. Shortly after, death caught up to all of the residents and they all
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