Essay About Edgar Allan Poes Short Story And Masque Of The Red Death

The Rooms from Life to Death
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In Edgar Allan Poes short story, “The Masque of the Red Death”, Poe use many symbols
to interpret the many different themes. One of the themes is that you cannot escape death which
Poe proves in this story to be true. Each of the rooms that Poe uses in the story represents a
certain kind of mood, emotion or coincidences in life.
Poes story takes place in seven connected but carefully separated rooms. This reminds
the reader of the past significance of the number seven. The history of the world was thought to
consist of seven ages, just as an individuals life had seven stages. The ancient world had seven
wonders; universities divided learning into seven subjects; there were seven deadly sins with
seven corresponding cardinal virtues. Therefore, an allegorical reading of this story suggests that
the seven rooms represent the seven stages of ones life, from birth to death, through which the
prince pursues a figure masked as a victim of the Red Death, only to die himself in the final
chamber of eternal night. The easternmost room is decorated in blue, with blue stained-glass
windows. The next room is purple with the same stained-glass window pattern. The rooms
continue westward, according to this design, in the following color arrangement: green, orange,
white, and violet. The seventh room is black, with red windows.
The rooms of the palace, lined up in a series that represents the stages of life. Poe makes
it a point to arrange the rooms running from east to west. This progression