Symbols and Irony

In the “Masque of the Red Death” the author Edgar Allen Poe used many symbols and a lot of irony for this haunting short story about King Prospero and the red death.

 In the story there is a very vicious, deadly disease called the red death that is attacking the people of king Prospero. Selfishly the king decides to gather all of his friends who have not yet contracted the disease and throw a huge bash away from the disease.

There are several different strong symbols in this short story, one that stand out and the author goes into good detail about, is the ebony clock. Edgar allan Poe paints a very detailed and realistic picture in your mind of this huge, very prominent dark clock. All the party guests are aware of it, and when it goes off there is almost and sense of doom in the air. All the guests stop what they are doing and only resume what they were doing after the clock stops chiming. When I was reading this it seemed to me like Edgar Allen Poe used the clock like a signal that something bad was to come, like a countdown. 

The black room was another big symbol in “the Masque of the Red Death”. Edgar Allan Poe went into great detail about the 7 different rooms and how each is completley decked out in one single colour. The readers got a sense that the black room was a signal for some bad luck to come and the party guests had that idea too. No one stepped foot in the black room unless they had too. In the end king Prospero was killed in the black room. Therefor I think the black room was also used as a symbol of death.

The masked man who showed up to the party, uninvited and killed the king, I saw as a symbol of Karma. The king deserted his people, and instead threw a huge party. You couldn’t get a better case of karma.

There are many cases of Irony throughout the story. Even the Kings name is kindof ironic seeing Prospero is so close to the word Prosperous meaning successful and doing well. The big use of irony in the story was that the king threw a party to keep death out and death showed up uninvited. I don’t feel sorry in the end when all the party guests die of the red death, they deserved it by neglecting the people who were suffering outside.