"Mask of the Red Death": the famous work of Edgar Allan Poe

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Edgar Allan Poe's novel "Mask of the Red Death" was first published in 1842. She brought her creator only $12. Who would have thought that a short story would glorify the author all over the world? The fact is that this is a fine example of high-quality and exciting mysticism.

Storyline

The Mask of the Red Death tells the story of the happy, we althy and successful Prince Prospero. He locks himself with his friends in his own castle to avoid a formidable illness. Despite the general fear and horror, the hero organizes a masquerade. People come to the festival in luxurious and fancy costumes. However, the "feast during the plague" turns into a terrible disaster: a man in the costume of a dead man, stricken with red death, appears on it. The angry host demands an answer from the impudent guest, wants to tear off his mask and execute him at dawn. However, the stranger does not listen to anyone. He slowly follows into a terrible black room, where he kills first Prospero, and then his carefree guests.

Location

BEdgar Allan Poe's short story "Mask of the Red Death" has many elements of gothic literature. For example, the place in which events take place resembles a medieval castle. It has many spacious rooms decorated in different colors. Some researchers consider this a reflection of the human mind. They say that the colors of the rooms symbolize the various hypostases of life. Blue, red, green, orange, white, purple and, finally, black - can talk about the state of a person during the periods of birth, growing up, fading and death. The black room is especially impressive. This is the only room in which guests refuse to have fun. It has blood-red windows that cast ominous reflections on the black walls and floor. There is also an ebony clock that counts the moments of human life. Many consider Prospero's rapid movement through a suite of colorful rooms a symbol of sudden death.

Mystery Disease

The "Mask of the Red Death" describes a terrible disease that strikes the sick in just half an hour. At first, he is tormented by dizziness and convulsions. Then purple spots appear on his face. In the end, blood begins to flow from the pores of the unfortunate, and he dies in terrible agony. The disease is completely fictional.

However, the ominous symptoms are reminiscent of several serious diseases that tormented the United States at the time of writing the novel.

First, it's tuberculosis. According to eyewitnesses, Poe's wife, Virginia, suffered from this disease. And, like his hero, the author did not want to accept the possibility of her death.

Second is cholera. She also killed many of the famous writer's contemporaries.

And the third option is the bubonic plague. This hypothesis, according to the researchers, is confirmed by the place where the heroes of the "Mask of the Red Death" died - the black room.

The essence of the work

Edgar Poe wrote a sumptuous novel. It depicts not just a festival, but a mystery, a theatrical performance. A feast that ends in tragedy. Many believe that the work has only one main idea - the inevitability of death. However, Poe was a master of subtle nuances and allegories. That is why his novel cannot be interpreted so unambiguously.

An interesting version is presented by A. P. Urakova in her work "Emptiness under the mask: the anthropological aspect of the story by E. A. Based on the "Mask of the Red Death". She believes that the abbey, which Prospero ordered to be surrounded by a stone wall and iron gates, is a symbol of the body seeking to protect itself from microbes. And the events that are described in the short story personify the confrontation between illness and he alth, life and death. In a seemingly he althy body - the abbey of Prince Prospero - a deadly threat lurks. She hid in the last, seventh room. Here there are all the attributes of an ominous disease: black draperies, blood-red glasses. Then the visual image of the disease manifests itself as a kind of phantom or ghost - the red mask of death.

Description of the life of the prince and his merryguests is a projection of the internal sensations of the body. Dancing people symbolize dizziness. The hourly rhythm that organizes the movement of the characters represents an uneven pulse, etc. The masquerade costume, under which in the end there was "nothing tangible" hints at a disease that was always present in the castle, but was only noticed at the fateful holiday.

The Mask of the Red Death hides many more secrets. To understand them, you should read this work, feel its unique atmosphere and sinister beauty.