The Masque of the Red Death

Allison, Kelsey G., Sean, and Jack

Edgar Allen Poe• Born in Boston in 1809

• Died in Baltimore in 1849- committed suicide

• In 1827-1829 in army

• Made living as Americas first literary critic and theoretician

• Reputation rests primarily on his stories of terror and haunting lyrical poetry

Visuals

"Blood was its seal"

• "Retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys"Having battlements like a castle (castle like); having or supporting a castlePlace of confinement

"Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of

the most unusual magnificence"

"At the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue-- and vividly

blue were it's windows."

"The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and

tapestries, and here, the planes were purple."

"The third was green throughout,

and so were the casements."

"The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange."

"The fifth was white."

"The sixth was violet."

"The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung

all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds onto carpet of the same

materials and hue." "The panes were scarlet-- a deep blood color."

• "It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony." "The giddiest group pale and the most aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if a confused reverie or meditation."Represents the party guests' time left to liveHuman aspects- face, hands, and musicality

"...whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony

clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave- cerements and corpse-like mask

which they handled with so violent of

rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form."

Images

Prince Prospero• Prince - lines from story-

"Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious." dauntless- not intimidated, fearless sagacious- having or showing acute mental discernment and keen practical sense

• He summoned many of his friends to his abbey/castle which "was an extensive and magnificent structure."

Number 7• There are seven colored

rooms in Prince Prospero's castle.

• They represent the seven stages of life

• Other things that can be seven: the seven deadly sins, seven wonders of the world, seven learning subjects, the world made in seven days.

The seven rooms• Go from east to west (birth to death- course

of sun)

• Represent seven stages of life.

• Blue- birth/ innocence

• Purple- youth and some loss of innocence

• Green- springtime or your prime time of life

• Orange- leaves of life changing, getting older, past your prime. (40s)

• White- old age (white hair)

• Violet- rich in wisdom coming from old age

• Black/red- death

Masquerade• Lively and convivial

• Suspenseful and suspicious (masks)

• Eerie atmosphere whenever the clock chimes

• Prince Prospero was the life of the party -- made sure everyone was grotesque (costumes)

• Prince Prospero= the ball (everything dies when he dies)

Shadows

• The shadows reflect the unknown

• The shadow is the ever present fact of death will always catch up with you and it is following you around for your whole life.

The Red Death and Time

• The layout of the seven rooms

• The colors of all of the windows correspond with the colors of the rooms except for the black room with red windows. Poe links the colors red and black with death and time-- end of life.

• As stated in the text, "scarlet stains upon the body and face of the victim," indicate the Red Death is present. The mark of death is blood, “the very substance of life."

Prison vs. Sanctuary

• Sanctuary- protection from something in the outside world

• Prison- protection of outside world from something (confinement)

Link to Prince Prospero's plan

• The Prince created a sanctuary to protect himself and his friends from the Red Death

• But by putting walls around his castle he turned his sanctuary into a prison

Atmosphere• Dark

• Eerie

• Deathly

• Suffering

• Fearful

• Bloody/gory

• Terrifying

Gothic Conventions• supernatural presence- the Red Death can walk through walls and suddenly

appear

• separate worlds- Prince Prospero locks himself in the castle and isolates himself from the outside world

• metonomy- the ebony clock chimes and everyone stops what they are doing

• Witching hours- night time, blood red moon

• Common characters- grotesques

• unnatural acts of nature- the unnatural silence

• The overall story is Gothic because it gives off a dark and eerie feeling

Allegory

• Double meaning

• Literal: people are dying because of a disease

• Symbolic/Moral: you can't escape death

Biblical allusion • The Masque of the Red Death is about a young prince who

throws a giant party at the height of a bloody plague. The young prince tries to stop the plague by bolting all of the doors in his castle. In the end death gets in and kills the prince. The moral of this story was that nobody can escape death no matter how hard they try. Also, death will attack everybody, it just depends when and where death will strike. In

• Thessalonians 5:2-3, the text says, " For you yourselves know very well that the Day of The Lord will come as a thief in the night. When people say ' Everything is quiet and safe' then suddenly deny destruction will hit them! It will come as suddenly as the pains that come upon a woman in labor, and people will not escape." This means that when people think they aren't going to die, then some form of death will come and snatch them in its claw.

• The moral of both these stories is that people shouldn't try to escape death, because being exhausted is terrible way to go.

Extra slide😛😯

🙈🙉🙊

That is so Fetch💁