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• 1 media/32ffb489-5ecf-4893-835a-d2459ae3b700.jpeg 2020-04-13T10:59:12-07:00 The Masque of the Red Death 11 Short Story image_header 2020-05-14T08:39:01-07:00

  In the 1842 publication of "The Masque of the Red Death", the story explores how a plague brings death and destruction on a party of aristocrats. These wealthy citizens and freinds take refuge in a secluded and protected area of Prince Prospero's (the host) castle.

  "... retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys....A strong and lofty wall girdled it. This wall had gates of iron."  "The abby was amply provisioned....The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure....buffoons,...improvisatori,...ballet dancers,...musicians,...Beauty,...wine. All these and security were within. Without was the 'Red Death.' "

  
  

  While in the safe domain of his castle, Prince Prospero throws a masque ball in his imperial suite which contains seven rooms. Of all the different colored and stylized rooms, the one that's least attended is the seventh room. In this room, there's a huge clock with a pendulum that swings left to right when the clock strikes. When the clock makes a loud, ominous noise at the top of each hour, everyone freezes until the clang stops. 

   clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause... But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows...

  At around midnight, when the clock make its presence known, the guests become aware of an unknown presence amongst them. Prince Prospero exclaims and demands someone seize the figure, however no one approaches the figure. It proceedes to move through the other six apartments until it reaches the seventh one. At that time, the figure turns to face Prine Prospero who then drops dead after this confrontation. 

  "There was a sharp cry-and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero....[Then] a throng of the revelers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and seizing the mummer...gasped in unutterrable horror at finding the grave cerements and corpselike mask which they handled with so violent a rudeness untenanted by any tangible form."

  After the prince dies, the crowd rushes the the figure and takes off its corpse-like mask, revealing nothing and everything at once. It was the Red Death that infiltrated their masque. One by one, all the guests and performers drop dead, adding another possession for the Red Death. 

   "...the life of the ebony clock went out....And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."

  In this short story, the monsters could be the Red Death and/or Prince Prospero and his guests. The Red Death spreads fear and death once his presence is made and because he called Red rather than Black Death, this suggests that the color of life can be an indicator of death (Womack, 1997). The Red Death could be a monster because of the fear, terror, and death he inflicts upon the party. However, Prince Prospero and his gueast could also be considered monsters, not through anyone's perspective but because of their own actions. While people were dying of the Red Death, Prince Prospero made sure to gather his friends to his castle to wait out the plague. They did not seem to consider the lives of the rest of the kingdom's inhabitants as they partied and celebrated the night away. The disregard for his less fortunate subjects and his poor attempt to stave off death could make Prince Prospero a monster. In addition, the seventh room seems to represent death itself meaning that it could be a site of monstrosity. Everyone dies in that room and it's where the Red Death makes its final stance. The joining of Red Death and the black death represented by the room creates a site of monstrosity that no one escapes from.

  The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure.