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"'''The Masque of the Red Death'''", originally published as "'''The Mask of the Red Death'''"(1842) is a [[short story]] by [[Edgar Allan Poe]]. The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous [[pandemic|plague]] known as the Red Death by hiding in his abbey. He, along with many other wealthy [[nobility|nobles]], has a [[masquerade ball]] within seven rooms of his abbey, each decorated with a different color. In the midst of their revelry, a mysterious figure enters and makes his way through each of the rooms. When Prospero confronts this stranger, he falls dead. The story follows many traditions of [[Gothic fiction]] and is often analyzed as an [[allegory]] about the inevitability of death, though some critics advise against an allegorical reading. Many different interpretations have been presented, as well as attempts to identify the true nature of the disease of the "Red Death." |
"'''The Masque of the Red Death'''", originally published as "'''The Mask of the Red Death'''"(1842) is a [[short story]] by [[Edgar Allan Poe]]. The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous [[pandemic|plague]] known as the Red Death by hiding in his [[abbey]]. He, along with many other wealthy [[nobility|nobles]], has a [[masquerade ball]] within seven rooms of his abbey, each decorated with a different color. In the midst of their revelry, a mysterious figure enters and makes his way through each of the rooms. When Prospero confronts this stranger, he falls dead. The story follows many traditions of [[Gothic fiction]] and is often analyzed as an [[allegory]] about the inevitability of death, though some critics advise against an allegorical reading. Many different interpretations have been presented, as well as attempts to identify the true nature of the disease of the "Red Death." |
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The story was first published in May 1842 in ''[[Graham's Magazine]]''. It has since been adapted in many different forms, including the [[The Masque of the Red Death (film)|1964 film]] starring [[Vincent Price]]. It has also been alluded to throughout other works in many types of media. |
The story was first published in May 1842 in ''[[Graham's Magazine]]''. It has since been adapted in many different forms, including the [[The Masque of the Red Death (film)|1964 film]] starring [[Vincent Price]]. It has also been alluded to throughout other works in many types of media. |
Revision as of 01:42, 13 June 2009
Author | Edgar Allan Poe |
---|---|
Original title | The Mask of the Red Death: A Fantasy |
Language | English |
Genre | Horror short story |
Publisher | Graham's Magazine |
Publication date | May 1842 |
Publication place | United States |
"The Masque of the Red Death", originally published as "The Mask of the Red Death"(1842) is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous plague known as the Red Death by hiding in his abbey. He, along with many other wealthy nobles, has a masquerade ball within seven rooms of his abbey, each decorated with a different color. In the midst of their revelry, a mysterious figure enters and makes his way through each of the rooms. When Prospero confronts this stranger, he falls dead. The story follows many traditions of Gothic fiction and is often analyzed as an allegory about the inevitability of death, though some critics advise against an allegorical reading. Many different interpretations have been presented, as well as attempts to identify the true nature of the disease of the "Red Death."
The story was first published in May 1842 in Graham's Magazine. It has since been adapted in many different forms, including the 1964 film starring Vincent Price. It has also been alluded to throughout other works in many types of media.
Plot summary
The story takes place at the castellated abbey of the "happy and dauntless and sagacious" Prince Prospero. Prospero and one thousand other nobles have taken refuge in this walled abbey to escape the Red Death, a terrible plague that has swept over the land. The symptoms of the Red Death are gruesome: the victim is overcome by convulsive agony and sweats blood instead of water. The plague is said to kill within half an hour. Prospero and his court are presented as indifferent to the sufferings of the population at large, intending to await the ending of the plague in luxury and safety behind the walls of their secure refuge.
One night, Prospero holds a masquerade ball to entertain his guests in seven colored rooms of the abbey. Six of the rooms are each decorated and illuminated in a specific color: blue, purple, green, orange, white, and violet. The last room is decorated in black and is illuminated by a blood-red light; because of this chilling pair of colors, few guests are brave enough to venture into the seventh room. The room is also the location of a large ebony clock that ominously clangs at each hour. At the chiming of midnight, Prospero notices one figure in a blood-spattered, dark robe resembling a funeral shroud, with a skull-like mask depicting a victim of the Red Death, which all at the ball have been desperate to escape. Gravely insulted, Prospero demands to know the identity of the mysterious guest so that they can hang him, and when none obey, pursues him with a drawn dagger through the seven rooms until the mysterious figure is cornered in the seventh room, the black room where the windows are tinted scarlet. When the figure turns to face him, the Prince falls dead at a glance. The enraged and terrified revelers surge into the black room and remove the mask, only to find both it and the costume empty. To the horror of all, the figure reveals itself as the personification of the Red Death itself, and all the guests suddenly contract and succumb to the disease. The final line of the story sums up: "And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."
Analysis
In "The Masque of the Red Death" Poe adapts many conventions of traditional Gothic fiction, including the setting of a castle. The multiple single-toned rooms may be representative of the human mind, showing different personality types. The imagery of blood and time throughout also indicate corporeality. The plague may, in fact, be typical attributes of human life and mortality.[1] This would imply the entire story is an allegory about man's futile attempts to stave off death, the commonly accepted interpretation.[2] However, there is much dispute over how to interpret "The Masque of the Red Death", including those who suggest it is not allegorical, especially due to Poe's admission of a distaste for didacticism in literature.[3] If the story really does have a moral, Poe showed restraint by not explicitly stating that moral in the text. For those looking for the moral, then, it is there, while for others it has no message.[4]
Blood, emphasized throughout the tale along with the color red, serves as an oddly paradoxical dual symbol. For one, it represents death in the story. It also, however, represents life. This is emphasized by the masked figure, never explicitly stated to be the actual Red Death but only a reveler in a costume of the Red Death, making his initial appearance in the easternmost room. This room is colored blue, a color most often associated with birth.[5]
Though Prospero's castle is supposed to serve as a protective location, meant to keep the sickness out, it is ultimately an oppressive structure. Its maze-like design and tall and narrow windows become almost burlesque-like in the final black room, so oppressive that "there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all."[6] Additionally, the castle is meant to be a closed space but the stranger is still able to get in, suggesting that control is an illusion.[7]
Like many of Poe's tales, "The Masque of the Red Death" has also been interpreted autobiographically. In this point of view, Prince Prospero is Poe as a wealthy young man part of a distinguished family, much like his foster parents the Allans. Poe, then, is seeking refuge from the dangers of the outside world and leaves himself as the only person willing to confront the stranger, emblematic of the author's own rush towards inescapable dangers in his own life.[8]
The "Red Death"
The disease of the Red Death is a fictitious one. Poe describes it as causing "sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores" leading to death within half an hour.
It is likely that the disease was inspired by tuberculosis (or consumption, as it was known then), as Poe's wife Virginia was suffering from the disease at the time the story was written. Like the character of Prince Prospero, Poe tried to ignore the fatality of the disease.[9] Poe's mother Eliza and foster mother Frances Allan had also died of tuberculosis. Alternately, the "red death" may refer to cholera; Poe would have witnessed an epidemic of cholera in Baltimore, Maryland in 1831.[10] Others have suggested that the plague is actually Bubonic plague or the Black death, emphasized by the climax of the story featuring the "Red" Death in the "black" room.[11] One writer likened the description to that of a viral hemorrhagic fever or necrotizing fasciitis[12]. It has been suggested that the Red Death is not a disease or sickness at all but something else that is shared by all of humankind inherently.[13]
Publication history
Poe first published this story in the May 1842 edition of Graham's Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine as "The Mask of the Red Death", with the tagline "A Fantasy." This first publication earned him $12.[14] A revised version was published in the July 19, 1845 edition of the Broadway Journal under the now-standard title "The Masque of the Red Death."[15] The original title emphasized the figure at the end of the story; its new title put emphasis on the masquerade ball.[16]
Film, TV, theatrical, or radio adaptations
- The story inspired Russian filmmaker Vladimir Gardin's A Spectre Haunts Europe in 1921.
- Basil Rathbone read the entire short story in his early 60's Cademon Lp recording "The Tales of Edgar Allan Poe."
- The story was adapted in 1964 by Roger Corman into a film, The Masque of the Red Death, starring Vincent Price. The film adapted parts of another Poe story, "Hop-Frog", involving the court jester and his wife. Corman remade this film, starring Adrian Paul as "Prince Prospero", (but did not direct) in 1989.[17]
- The story was adapted for by American director Orson Welles for a planned episode for the Poe anthology film Spirits of the Dead, which would have starred Welles as The Prince, and Oja Kodar as Fortunata, in an episode that also combined elements from "The Cask of Amontillado". It was eventually replaced by the French producers with segments directed by Roger Vadim and Louis Malle.[citation needed]
- The story was adapted by George Lowther for the January 10, 1975, broadcast of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater which starred Karl Swenson and Staats Cotsworth.
- A radio dramatization, The Masque of the Red Death, was performed by Winifred Phillips, with music composed by her. The program was produced by Winnie Waldron as part of National Public Radio's "Tales by American Masters" series.
- The story has been adapted by Punchdrunk Productions in collaboration with Battersea Arts Centre as a promenade theatre performance at Battersea Arts Centre from September 17, 2007, to April 12, 2008[18]
See also
References
- ^ Fisher, Benjamin Franklin. "Poe and the Gothic tradition" as collected in The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Kevin J. Hayes. New York City: Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN 0521797276 p. 88
- ^ Roppolo, Joseph Patrick. "Meaning and 'The Masque of the Red Death'", collected in Poe: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Robert Regan. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967. p. 137
- ^ Roppolo, Joseph Patrick. "Meaning and 'The Masque of the Red Death'", collected in Poe: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Robert Regan. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967. p. 134
- ^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. ISBN 0801857309. p. 331.
- ^ Roppolo, Joseph Patrick. "Meaning and 'The Masque of the Red Death'", collected in Poe: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Robert Regan. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967. p. 141
- ^ Laurent, Sabrina. "Metaphor and Symbolism in The Masque of the Red Death", from Boheme: An Online Magazine of the Arts, Literature, and Subversion. July 2003. Available online.
- ^ Peeples, Scott. "Poe's 'constuctiveness' and 'The Fall of the House of Usher'" as collected in The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe. Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN 0521797276 p. 186
- ^ Rein, David M. Edgar A. Poe: The Inner Pattern. New York: Philosophical Library, 1960. p. 33
- ^ Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. Harper Perennial, 1991. ISBN 0060923318 p. 180-1
- ^ Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. Cooper Square Press, 1992. ISBN 0815410387 p. 133
- ^ Cummings Study Guide for "The Masque of the Red Death"
- ^ "Molecules of Death" 2nd edition, edited by R H Waring, G B Steventon, S C Mitchell. London: Imperial College Press, 2007
- ^ Roppolo, Joseph Patrick. "Meaning and 'The Masque of the Red Death'", collected in Poe: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Robert Regan. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967. p. 139-40
- ^ Ostram, John Ward. "Poe's Literary Labors and Rewards" in Myths and Reality: The Mysterious Mr. Poe. Baltimore: The Edgar Allan Poe Society, 1987. p. 39
- ^ Edgar Allan Poe — "The Masque of the Red Death" at the Edgar Allan Poe Society online
- ^ Sova, Dawn B. Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z. New York: Checkmark Books, 2001. p. 149. ISBN 081604161X
- ^ Sova, Dawn B. Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z. New York: Checkmark Books, 2001. p. 150. ISBN 081604161X
- ^ National Theatre online
External links
- "The Masque of the Red Death" at EServer.org
- "The Masque of the Red Death" with annotated vocabulary at PoeStories.com
- "The Masque of the Read Death" with definitions at xahlee.org
- Sabrina Laurent (July 2003). "Metaphor and Symbolism in The Masque of the Red Death", Bohème Magazine Online.
- "The Masque of the Red Death" Audio-Text Complete etext with free audio narration.