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“To be hurt
To feel lost
To be left out in the dark
To be kicked when you're down
To feel like you've been pushed around
To be on the edge of breaking down
And no one's there to save you
No you don't know what it's like
Welcome to my life…”
[Simple Plan, Welcome to my life]

Can you imagine clutching frantically the sharp edge of a rock and yelling your lungs out shouting for help, only to have your fingers maliciously crushed by Fate’s heels? Plummeting into the precipice bereft of hope, being suddenly stopped by a root protruding from the rock’s solid mass, just to see it slipping out and plunging into darkness with you? … Basically, this is what Edgar Allan’s Poe life was all about. Are you now surprised by the “gothic” content of his works?
His work, both poetry and prose tend to be very personal and reflecting his inner feelings. Along with holding some universal truths, even most allegorical of Poe’s poems or stories contain, implicitly served, views of their very author. Below the seemingly obvious interpretation of “The Masque of the Red Death” as another reference to famous medieval dance-of-death theme, there lies yet another, bitterer, layer of the cake – the reflection of author’s dark soul, his hate of mankind. After a closer examination, the Prince ceases to be symbol of decadent aristocrat – he becomes the representation of every living person who *dares* to enjoy his life. The throng of people amusing themselves at the party is, in Poe’s caricatured world, to be blamed for the injustice of the world, letting some revel while the others cry. The whole story abounds in scornful and disdainful descriptions of both the invited guests and their host, yet the most hateful words come in the very end of “The Masque”, with the parallelism leading to grim finale, in which the narrator, with hardly hidden satisfaction or perhaps even pleasure, states:
And Darkness...