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The Masque of the Red Death: A Life Story
Lux Bai
Oct 2010
Critics often regard “The Masque of the Red Death” as an allegorical tale about man’s fear of death (Cassuto, Wheat, Bell), assuming the mysterious deadly contagion “Red Death” as a representative of death. It is, however, a misinterpretation — the Red Death is in fact life itself. By describing at large Prince Prospero and his guests’ response towards him, Edgar Allan Poe reveals the tragic nature of life and the futility of human’s every attempt to escape from it.
As appearing in the title, what the Red Death represents is crucial for understanding the theme of the allegory. In the beginning of the story, Poe introduces us the hideous plague with such description: “Blood was its Avatar and its seal –– the redness and the horror of blood.” “Avatar” means that the blood is an incarnation of the Red Death. According to Joseph Roppolo, Avatar can also be defined as “a variant phase or version of a continuing entity”, thus suggests a second meaning of blood: an eternal ruling principle of the universe. What blood or the Red Death should represent, therefore is this eternal universal principle that man strives to avoid but fails. The question is: As blood could symbolize either life or death, which one is the rule?
The story depicts a metaphoric battle between Prospero and the Red Death. One should assume if we know what Prospero’s world represents, we would automatically know what the Red Death means since it must be the opposite. Examining the text of the work, I discover there is strong implicit of Prospero’s insanity. He is “happy and dauntless” when his dominions were half depopulated. His “eccentric tastes” and love of “bizarre” are emphasized constantly throughout the story. Poe also explicitly tells us “there are some who would have though him mad”, but carefully avoids revealing too much by saying “his followers felt that he was not”. His followers, however, are revealed later as “dreams”, “phantasm” and “mad revelers”, suggesting they might be as insane as well or even unreal. All above evidence suggests the madness of Prospero’s world.
From the above clues, one may speculate the Red Death as the “enemy” of Prospero represents sanity, reality and solidness. In terms of a universal rule, the Red Death is the nature of life.
Besides the madness stressed in the story, other interesting points also support this interpretation. One question I came across when reading the story is why the Red Death has no tangible form. Also, how does he sneak in the abbey? Then I realized that instead of moving around in a form as the guests see, the Red Death is actually omnipresent, like God. He is not an independent figure but exists everywhere in the air. By giving him no tangible form, Poe suggests that Red Death is the universal rule Life.
Later in the story there is a scene in which Prospero chases the Red Death from the blue room to the black room. The color of the rooms symbolizes Prospero’s lifespan (Bell). As blue refers to birth and black refers to death, the scene would not make sense if we regard the Red Death as death itself. Why would Prospero chase death from the date of his birth? It makes better sense to view the scene as Prospero seeking the nature of life, as human has been since the beginning of history.
Another peculiar thing occurs in the beginning of the story: The courtiers “welded the bolts” not to keep the Red Death out, but to prevent the courtiers own “sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy” to get out. What is so attractive to incite people to risk their lives? The answer certainly is not death itself. There is no reason for them to kill themselves if the world inside the abbey is as happy as seemed. The explanation would be although the world outside, represented by the Red Death is dreadful, it is real while the world inside is just a mad dream. People in the abbey somewhat know the self-deceiving nature of their world and it is man’s primary instinct to seek the reality.
Poe even compares the looks of the guests and the Red Death’s to make further implications. He lets every guest wear various grotesque mask and costumes, while giving the Red Death a face “so nearly resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have difficulty in detecting the cheat” to suggest he represents the truth.
Another interesting point to notice is: If the Red Death was the representative of death which Prospero tries so hard to avoid, why would he include the black room in his design of the suite? Clearly, he is not so afraid of the black room as he is afraid of the Red Death, for he “shuddered either of terror or distaste” at the sight of him. The only possible explanation is that the Red Death refers to something more than death.
While all above evidence supports our previous speculation, one may argue that there are many obvious implications of death in the story. For example, the clock of ebony symbolizes the limited time each person has to live. While the stroking of each hour minds the guests their inevitable, they react deeply disturbed and anxious. The clock as a representation of human life is also suggested in the end, as “the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay.” Also, the seven rooms of the abbey, according to Bell, is “an allegorical representation of Prince Prospero’s life span”. The direction of the rooms, in accord with the sun rising in the east and setting in the west indicates the dawn and dust of one’s life. The order of the rooms –– blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet — also symbolizes “Prospero’s physical and mental condition in that decade of his life” (Bell). Guests’ fear of the westernmost black room is a distinct metaphor for man’s fear of death.
Notwithstanding the idea is well supported, the Red Death does not necessarily represent only death. As Prospero includes the black room in his suites suggests, Poe suggests death is in fact a part of life. The inevitability of death therefore is also part of the tragic nature of life, the main theme of the story. Contrary to the common belief, Poe in “The Masque of the Red Death” cleverly combines death and life into one reality.
Now we know the Red Death represents the nature of life, but in order to get the message of the story, we must know Poe’s idea of life. In “The Masque of the Red Death”, he suggests directly, both from language and plot, that life is tragic, hopeless and invincible.
Regarding the language, Poe’s usage of a deadly contagion the Red Death to symbolize life is a clever irony. It powerfully reveals life as tragic, horrid and hopeless. When depicting the six rooms, he connects life with sickness: “feverishly the heart of life”. Regarding the plot, Poe contributes much time describing the life Prospero and his guests’ have in the abbey to convey the message that man can never delude himself and escape from reality. Under the extravagant and happy surface, Poe suggests, their world is actually fragile and deeply corrupted. More notably, the world created by the characters in the story significantly reflects the world we live in on both individual and societal level.
On a personal level, Poe suggests man tries to distract himself from the tragic nature of life by earthly emotional experiences and material comforts. Deeply afraid of the Red Death’s invasion, Prospero attempts to deny it by “all appliances of pleasure”. Among these pleasures, Poe implies both emotional and material comforts man often indulges himself with.
Prospero’s crenellated abbeys of “an extensive and magnificent structure” with “strong and lofty wall” signify man’s common desire for a secure and wealthy residence. The masque ball as a “voluptuous scene” also is the very depiction of man’s obsession with sumptuous lifestyle. Most notably, the “imperial suite” holding the masquerade with superb embellishments and the guests all meticulously dressed up in “grotesque” style represents the utmost material pleasure one could ever imagine. However, no matter to what extent is the extravagance, the Red Death comes “like a thief in night” and massacred all.
Poe also suggests that man seeks emotive incitement to distract himself from the cruelty of life. The color of the seven rooms, besides suggesting different periods of life, also implies the various and complicated sensibilities man possesses; the guests stalking “to and fro in the seven chambers” is a metaphor for man’s constant craving for emotional stimulation. Similarly, Poe deliberately devotes much time describing the guests enjoying music and dancing “feverishly” to suggest the same thing. However, at the moment the clock rings, all pause and listen shows the insignificance and triviality of man’s emotion compared to the gravity of life itself.
On a societal level, Poe shows how humans use each other to seek consolation and enhance their illusions. In the allegory, Poe reveals dark sides of human relationship in three aspects. First, Poe shows the apparent cruelty and indifference of man. In the beginning of the story, Poe depicts the scarlet stains as “the pest pan, which shut him [a victim] out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-man”. Poe clearly reveals the heartless attitudes of the privileged groups toward the vulnerable group. Prospero’s reaction towards the misery of his people as “happy” is an example of his extreme brutality. Also, from lines like ''the external world... take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think," Poe presents the reader a group of corrupted souls with no morality.
Second, Poe implies the serious inequality of people’s status in the society. Prospero enjoys absolute power over all his guests. In his power-centralized world, everyone relies on this subordinate relationship to seek a sense of security. Being worshipped and embraced by his followers, Prospero finds consolation in his followers, while the followers seek sense of safety under the “protection” of Prospero. The design of the ball and the guest costumes reflects this issue most: “it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders.” We see a total loss of identity and freedom of the subordinate.
Thirdly, people deceives and consoles each other, the “masque” itself is a metaphor for people’s hypocrisies. Dancing to the same music with same paces, they hide their inner selves under the masks to integrate into the environment. Poe notes this point by saying the guests “taking hue from the rooms”, which is a metaphor for man changing faces in different social occasions. Meanwhile, people console each other to comfort their own anxiety. After hearing the stroke, they “made whispering vows” and had “laughter floats after them as they depart”, only to deepen their illusions.
As one may expect, all these efforts Prospero and his guests make to distract themselves from the Red Death, in possessions, emotions and social relations, fail to save them from death. At last, “Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all”; dreams are devastated by reality. As Poe suggests, the dream itself, although beautifully embellished, is just as bad as life in nature, filled with deception, indifference and brutality. That may well explains how the Red Death creeps in with the bolts welded, for the abbey in fact has always been under his domination.
“The Masque of the Red Death” is therefore a story about life, a mysterious allegorical tale that reflects the dark sides of man’s society and the tragic nature of life that man is hopeless to escape.
* This is an abandoned rough draft without references.
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发表于 2013-5-25 00:18:34
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