Masque of the Red Death Symbolism

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The Masque of the Red Death Symbolism The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe is a Gothic Fiction about a man, Prince Prospero, who tries to escape a terrible plague that is spreading around the town he lives in. By locking himself and his closest friends in his castellated abbey, Prince Prospero made a desperate attempt at avoiding the epidemic. The Prince and his friends who are hiding in the abbey think that they are safe from the Red Death, but they are actually sadly mistaken. This story is an allegory because it has a hidden meaning or moral represented by a series of symbols. In this short story, the moral or meaning is that wealth and power offer no refuge from death and that death is unavoidable. There are many symbols in this story that contribute to this moral. In this story, the only main character is Prince Prospero, a rich man who thought that all of his money and power could help him avoid the Red Death. Prince Prospero is a symbol in this story because he symbolizes a victim of death, and is a symbol for all of the others who want to escape death as well. Another character who appears towards the end of the story is the uninvited guest. The uninvited guest symbolizes the Red Death, the terrible plague that the Prince and his friends were attempting to escape from. The uninvited guest showing up at the castellated abbey enhances the story and it’s moral by showing that death is never invited. Towards the end of the story Prince Prospero decides to throw a party in his castellated abbey with all of his friends to try and help himself and his friends forget about their boredom and seclusion from being in the abbey. The castellated abbey symbolizes false security. For the party, the revelers were supposed to wear dream-like costumes to symbolize youthful health and beauty. At the party, there are seven rooms or apartments, each different in
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