“The Masque of the Red Death” is a short story written by Poe. The story is about a plague called the red death that gruesomely kills it victims. It spreads across this fictional country very fast. The main character in the story is the prince, Prospero.Once the plague starts he grabbed 1000 of his friends and locks everyone in the palace to keep them in and everyone else out. A couple of months later he throws a party once midnight hits an uninvited masked man appeared at the party. Wearing a mask that symbolizes the red death. The prince run after death with a dagger after cashing him for 7 rooms he finally catches up to him in a black room with red windows Prospero try to stab death with the dagger but prospero dies. Finally the rest of the party caught up to see prospero dead and to find out that no one was under the mask, then the whole palace dies from the red death. The person with the mask was death himself. Poe wrote this story after the passing of his wife. He was very depressed at that time and this story shows that. Also the red death symbolize what killed his mom and wife tuberculosis. The symptoms are the same dizziness, sharp pain and seeping blood ext… so the plague itself was influenced by the real life illness tuberculosis that affected his and his loved ones life. The main theme I took from this story was that fact that no matter what you can't escape death. “Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.” No matter what you do to try to avoid death it will catch up to you and take you and your loved ones it's just part of life.
Link to the Masque of the Red Death https://www.poemuseum.org/the-masque-of-the-red-death
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