Yashley Pagan Pagan 1Mr. KautzHonors American Literature27 October 2014Pagan 2Masque of the Red DeathIn the "Masque of the Red Death," Poe uses the setting, characterization, and metaphor to show that death can be unexpected and unavoidable.The author, Edgar Allen Poe, uses setting to represent death and show that it is unexpected. In the passage, he uses different colors to represent each room in the castle. The first room is a light blue color but when the author gets to the last room he describes it with being a deep blood color. I can infer that the author wanted the reader to see how death represents evil be he specifically used a deep red and deep red can represent darkness, ev ...view middle of the document...
This shows that death is unexpected because it was unexpected to have only one room and deep color with a lamp in it while the other rooms were plain and didn't need a lamp to brighten it up. A deep blood color represents death, so to have an unexpected object in an unexpected colored room; it can be a sign that death is also unexpected. The way the author decided to structure his setting by placing the rooms from brightest to darkest and ending with a deep blood color shows how he wanted to tell the reader that no matter how much you continue to go down an evil path you will end up with death. The last room was used to represent death and show that it is unavoidable with evil.The Red Death represented by a man wearing a mask is used to show how death is unavoidable and unexpected. Edgar Allen Poe decides to use a person wearing a mask to represent the disease Red Death. While everyone was enjoying the masquerade ball an unexpected man shows up and disrupts the party:"And thus, too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure…aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before…The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was, made so nearly to resemble the countenance of the stiffened corpse that the closet scrutiny must have made difficultly detecting the cheat…his vesture was dabbled in blood- and his broad brow, with all the features of the face…was besprinkled with scarlet horror…when the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image…in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste… 'Who dares?' he demanded… 'Who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him- that we may know whom we have to hang'…" (Poe 3).The author uses this characterization to show that death is unexpected. The tall masked man entered the ball uninvited and without anybody knowing about him. The tall masked man was represented as death because he was Red Death which was a deadly disease. The author was trying to get the reader to see that death can show up anytime no matter where you're at or what you're doing. Using a man to represent death was used because death is something that is actually out to get people with evil. Another characterization the author uses to show death is unexpected is when the tall masked ...
