Edgar Allan Poe

The Masque of the Red Death Edgar Allan Poe

The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe

A disease known as the Red Death strikes the fictional country where this story takes place and causes its victims to die quickly and horribly. Despite the fact that this disease is rampant, the prince, Prospero, is feeling happy and hopeful. He decides to lock the doors of his palace to defend himself from the plague, ignoring the disease that ravages the land. After several months, he throws an elegant masked ball. For this celebration, decorate the rooms of your house in unique colors. The easternmost room is decorated in blue, with blue stained glass. The next room is purple with the same stained glass pattern. The rooms continue to the west, in accordance with this layout, in the following color arrangement: green, orange, white and purple. The seventh room is black, with red windows. Also in this room is an ebony clock. When the clock strikes every hour, its sound is so loud and annoying that everyone stops talking and the orchestra stops playing. However, when the clock does not strike, the rooms are so beautiful and strange that they seem to be filled with dreams, swirling among the revelers. Most guests, however, avoid the final room, black and red, because it contains both the clock and a sinister atmosphere.

At midnight, a new guest appears, dressed more macabre than his counterparts. His mask resembles the face of a corpse, his clothing resembles a funerary shroud, and his face reveals bloodstains suggesting that he is a victim of the Red Death. Prospero is angry that someone with such little humor and lightness joined his group. The other guests, however, are so afraid of this masked man that they cannot prevent him from passing through every room. Prospero finally catches up with the new guest in the black and red room. As soon as he confronts the figure, Prospero dies. When other partygoers enter the room to attack the man in the cape, they discover that no one is under the costume. Then they all die, because the Red Death has infiltrated the castle. "Darkness and decay and the red death" have finally triumphed.