Edgar Allen Poe and The Masque of the Red Death

Mr. Poe's mastery of gothic writing and his literary philosophy are clearly seen in his story The Masque of the Red Death. The inevitability of time, disease and death seem to be the principal focal points and facts of this masterpiece (Mondragon). The story was narrated to give it the quality of a symbolic myth while being structured to allow Mr. Poe to expound on topics of disease, time and death (Hoffmann). Mr. Poe shows the reader that time is something to be paid attention to and when it runs out this always leads to certain death. Death may be blocked out of the mind of any man as he goes on living his momentary existence but he will eventually be reminded of its reality (Roppolo) (Tis). Mr. Poe clearly shows in The Masque of the Red Death the finality of time passing and the inevitability of death as events that no one can avoid.

Edgar Allen Poe's writings are intimately connected to the time period he lived in (Roppolo). Mr. Poe watched his beloved wife Virginia die slowly over a period of time; this probably stimulated Poe's self-destructiveness and has been translated into his stories (Mondragon). Other writers theorize that Poe may have drawn parallels between the events of his youth and tales from Greek and Roman mythology; then added his own interpretation to create his stories or poetry (Dameron) (Tis). A probable influence on Mr. Poe's writing were the deaths of three women he knew; they died of tuberculosis; this was a familiar disease of the period. Particular evidence of his real life experiences influencing his writing can be seen in a letter from Edgar Poe to George Eveleth in 1848 in which he mentions the episode of his beloved wife bursting a blood vessel and coughing up blood during a visit with friends. Mr. Poe wrote The Masque of the Red Death shortly after that incident (Mondragon) (Tis). Mr. Poe may have been inclined to create stories with certain themes because of these many personal incidents (Mondragon) (Wilson).

Mr. Poe elaborated the settings and characters as needed to produce the effects he wanted. In the essay Philosophy of Composition Mr. Poe wrote about creating the effective atmosphere of a story. Mr. Poe's describes the composition needed to create his stories "whether by ordinary incidents and peculiar tone, or the converse, or by peculiarity both of incident and tone - afterward looking about me (or rather within) for such combinations of event, or tone, as shall best aid me in the construction of the effect"(Poe). Smith states that it was a blending technique used by Mr. Poe often. He says "In much of Poe's best work, the atmospheric elements are so subtly blended, unified and pervasive as to make analysis rather difficult." Mr. Poe used specific structured composition in his writing; these words of contrast and carefully worded phrases increased the dramatic nature of his stories (Mondragon).

Many writers have chosen to examine Edgar Allen Poe and his writings; the common consensus seems to be that Mr. Poe was a master of detailed description. Ruben states that Poe's writing presents realistic details in true gothic settings. Mr. Poe created a gothic effect by a shift of readers' perspective using essential and excessive metaphors in his works (Hoffmann). Roppolo talks about the atmosphere of The Masque of the Red Death and makes note of the last room; it was set towards the setting sun suggesting the end of life. Eric du Plessis states that Poe uses gothic colors of red and black in a non-harmonizing arrangement to reinforce an atmosphere of emotional discord in The Masque of the Red Death. Hoffman states "The principle of contrast can also be observed in the arrangement and decoration of the interior rooms" reminding us that Mr. Poe even considered the background to be important in the design of a story. Hoffmann says that the symbols used in The Masque of the Red Death show that the mental processes of reflection are of chief importance. Martha Womack comments on the dream images shown "These dancers are so much a product of the Prince's imagination that Poe refers to them as "a multitude of dreams" and again noting the skill of Mr. Poe's style and creation. The Masque of the Red Death is creatively defined in the manner that uses the combined physical spaces and the characters set in them to delineate each other. Using historical images to create certain kinds of feeling was a known device for Mr. Poe. In old medieval paintings the "dance of death" is shown as a skeleton leading a throng of people to their deaths just as the masked death leads Prince Prospero to the final room and death (Hoffmann). Mr. Poe uses The Masque of the Red Death to tell a simple story of one person's belief that for a while there are exceptions to the reality of death.

Time is the controller for all life. Death is its only master. Time plays as prominent a role as death in the story The Masque of the Red Death. Mr. Poe made a point to show the reader details about time and its passing in this story (Mondragon). From the opening sentence denoting the passage of time "The Red Death had long devastated the country" to a reminder of time passing with "the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion" and then showing the end of the sequestered revelers with "the flames of the tripods expired" the reader is constantly made aware of the momentary measure of time (Poe). Mr. Poe also set the structure of the clock as an important symbol of time passing and gave it the embodiment of life; he wrote about its "face" and its "brazen lungs" (Smith).The striking sound and ticking of the gigantic ebony clock and the guests' reactions are symbolic elements in this story showing time linked with destiny (Hoffmann). Mr. Poe makes sure we are under no illusion as to what will happen at the end of this story; he shows us the revelers breathing their last breath and points out that "the life of the ebony clock went out" and drives the point home about death being final with his last chilling words "And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all"(Poe).

The Masque of the Red Death is clear proof of Mr. Poe's mastery of Gothic writing. The central points of this masterpiece; disease, time and death are shown and described clearly for any reader. Death is disregarded by most men in the pursuit of living. But reality is life then at some point; death. Always time flows on and a certain death is the only thing any person has left at the end. Mr. Poe obviously demonstrates that in The Masque of the Red Death; the passing of time and the inescapability of death are proceedings that cannot be evaded by any person (Hoffmann) (Mondragon).

Works Cited

Dameron, Lasley. "Poe, Plagiarism, and American Periodicals." 1997. Poe Studies/Dark Romanticism. 5 July 2007 .

Du Plessis, Eric. "Deliberate Chaos: Poe's Use of Colors in The Masque of the Red Death." 2001. Poe Studies/Dark Romanticism. 6 July 2007

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Hoffmann, Gerhard. "Space and Symbol in the Tales of Edgar Allan Poe." The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore. 9 July 2007

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Mondragon, Brenda. "Edgar Allan Poe." 2006. Neuroticpoets. 7 July 2007

< http://www.neuroticpoets.com/poe/ >.

Poe, Edgar. "The Masque of the Red Death." Eserver. 6 July 2007 .

Poe, Edgar. "The Philosophy of Composition." The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore 8 July 2007 .

Tis. "How did Poe's works relate to his time period?" 2000. Online Posting. Hv.greenspun.com 6 July 2007

Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 3: Early Nineteenth Century - Edgar Allan Poe." 2006. PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. 8 July 2007 < http://web.csustan.edu/_nglish/reuben/pal/chap3/poe.html>.

Roppolo, Joseph. "Meaning and The Masque of the Red Death." The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore 9 July 2007

Smith, Clark. "Atmosphere in Weird Fiction." 1973. Mirage Press - Nonfiction in the Bibliography. 9 July 2007

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Wilson, James. "Poe's Life."2004. The PoeMuseum. 10 July 2007 <

http://www.poemuseum.org/poes_life/index.html>.

Womack, Martha. "Edgar Allan Poe's The Masque of the Red Death" 1997. The Poe Decoder.

9 July 2007 .