The Masque of the Red Death

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This article is about the short story. For the D&D campaign setting, see Masque of the Red Death (Ravenloft). For the 1964 film, see The Masque of the Red Death (film).

"The Masque of the Red Death" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe and first published in 1842.

There is no epigraph at the start of this story, unusual for a Poe tale.

Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Publication history 3 The "Red Death" 4 Film, TV, Theatrical, or Radio adaptations 5 Allusions/references from other works 6 External links

[edit] Plot summary

The story takes place at the castellated abbey of the "happy and dauntless and sagacious" Prince Prospero. Prospero and one thousand other nobles are taking refuge in a walled abbey to escape the Red Death, a terrible plague that has been sweeping the land. The symptoms of the Red Death are gruesome to behold: the victim is swept by convulsive agony and sweats blood instead of water. The plague is said to kill within half an hour. Prospero and his court are presented as being indifferent to the sufferings of the population at large, intending to await the ending of the plague in luxury and safety behind the walls of their secure refuge.

One night, Prospero holds a masquerade ball to entertain his guests. Seven great rooms of the abbey are decorated each in one of seven colors: blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and, chillingly, black. Late into the night, Prospero notices one figure in a grey robe resembling a funeral shroud, with a mask depicting a victim of the Red Death, which all at the ball have been desperate to escape. Gravely insulted, Prospero demands to know the identity of the mysterious guest, and pursues him through the seven rooms until the mysterious figure is cornered in the seventh room, the black room, whose windows are tinted scarlet. To the horror of all, the guest reveals himself as the personification of the Red Death itself, and Prospero and all his guests suddenly contract and succumb to the disease. The last line of the story is: "And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."

[edit] Publication history

Poe first published this story in the May 1842 edition of Graham's Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine as "The Mask of the Red Death." A revised version was published in the July 19, 1845, edition of the Broadway Journal under the now-standard title "The Masque of the Red Death." The story has been published in The Gold Bug and Other Tales as well as in many later collections of Poe's stories.

[edit] The "Red Death"

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The nature of the disease actually depicted as the Red Death is uncertain. Poe describes it as having "sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores" and death within half an hour. Some scholars feel that it is Poe's perception of tuberculosis (or consumption, as it was known then). Poe had already lost two of his female relatives to this disease. The onset of the disease was usually heralded by coughing up of blood. The infected person then went on to develop worsening blood loss as the disease progressed to fatality. However, unlike the "Red Death," which kills within half an hour, tuberculosis usually took several years to kill its victims.

Alternately, the "red death" may refer to cholera, as there had been a world-wide pandemic in 1834 followed by several major outbreaks throughout the 1830's and 40's. Like the "red death", cholera caused sharp pains, sudden dizziness and could cause death within a few hours although more likely within one or two days. Further, Poe may be aluding to "profuse diarrhea" a symptom of cholera, with the phrase, "profuse bleeding at the pores".

It could also be said that the Red Death is no actual disease but a horrific fictional one created by Poe for the purpose of the story.

[edit] Film, TV, Theatrical, or Radio adaptations

• The story inspired Russian filmmaker Vladimir R. Gardin's A Spectre Haunts Europe in 1921.

• The story was adapted in 1964 by Roger Corman into a film, The Masque of the Red Death, starring Vincent Price. The film adapted parts of another Poe story, Hop-Frog, involving the court jester and his wife.

• Corman remade this film in 1989.

• The 2001 animated/live-action comedy Osmosis Jones features the Red Death, otherwise known as Thrax, as the main villain. He was voiced by Laurence Fishburne.

• The story was adapted by George Lowther for the January 10, 1975 broadcast of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater which starred Karl Swenson and Staats Cotsworth.

[edit] Allusions/references from other works

• Stephen King's novel The Shining contains several allusions to the story.

• In Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera, Erik, the Phantom, attends a ball dressed as the Red Death with the inscription "Je suis la Mort rouge qui passe!" ("I am the red Death that passes") embroidered on his cloak in gold. The Red Death costume shows up in both the 1986 musical and 2004 film of the same name, though the stage production is somewhat more accurate regarding his appearance, as he bears a large feathered hat and lengthy cloak as described in the novel. Neither appearance, however, shows the inscription. The 1987 animated film also shows the Red Death scene. Erik dressed as the Red Death also appears on the cover of Sam Siciliano's The Angel of the Opera.

• The German metal band Stormwitch made a song called "Masque of the red death" on their 1985 album Tales of terror

• The American metal band Crimson Glory made a song called "Masque of the red death" on their 1988 album Transcendence.

• The 1994 computer game Under a Killing Moon featured interludes in which text slides containing lines of The Masque of the Red Death were narrated by James Earl Jones.

• The 1995 computer game The Dark Eye featured an abstract slide-show segment accompanying a reading of "The Masque of the Red Death" performed by William S. Burroughs.

• The 2002 Thrice album The Illusion of Safety features a song titled "The Red Death," an interpretation of the story.

• In the Terry Pratchett novel Maskerade, Death himself wears a Red Death costume at the climax of the story.

• In the Chuck Palahniuk novel Haunted, a quote from "The Masque of Red Death" is in the beginning of the book. Also, several of the rooms are colored with themes that reflects the story.

• In the Dan Simmons novel The Terror an elaborate Carnivale is staged outdoors by the crew of two ice-locked ships. The crew builds a series of multi-colored compartments for the event out on the ice using the ships' rigging and different colored paints. A crew member thinks of this idea from remembering a story by Poe he read in a magazine.

• Musician Ann Danielewski received her nickname, and later stagename,"Poe" after wearing a Red Death costume to a childhood Halloween party.

• The Norwegian metal band Theatre of Tragedy included dialogue from the film on their song And When He Falleth on their 1996 album Velvet Darkness They Fear.

[edit] External links

• "The Masque of the Red Death" at EServer.org
• "The Masque of the Red Death" with annotated vocabulary at PoeStories.com
• Sabrina Laurent (July 2003). "Metaphor and Symbolism in The Masque of the Red Death", Bohème Magazine Online.
• Analyzing Poe's Work Biographically and Psychologically Illinois State University

Edgar Allan Poe
Poems
Poetry (1824) • O, Tempora! O, Mores! (1825) • Song (1827) • Imitation (1827) • Spirits of the Dead (1827) • A Dream (1827) • Stanzas (1827) • Tamerlane (1827) • The Lake (1827) • Evening Star (1827) • A Dream (1827) • To Margaret (1827) • The Happiest Day (1827) • To The River —— (1828) (1828) • Romance (1829) • Fairy-Land (1829) • To Science (1829) • To Isaac Lea (1829) • Al Aaraaf (1829) • An Acrostic (1829) • Elizabeth (1829) • To Helen (1831) • A Paean (1831) • The Sleeper (1831) • The City in the Sea (1831) • The Valley of Unrest (1831) • Israfel (1831) • The Coliseum (1833) • Enigma (1833) • Fanny (1833) • Serenade (1833) • Song of Triumph from Epimanes (1833) • Latin Hymn (1833) • To One in Paradise (1833) • Hymn (1835) • Politician (1835) • May Queen Ode (1836) • Spiritual Song (1836) • Bridal Ballad (1837) • To Zante (1837) • The Haunted Palace (1839) • Silence, a Sonnet (1839) • Lines on Joe Locke (1843) • The Conqueror Worm (1843) • Lenore (1843) • Eulalie (1843) • A Campaign Song (1844) • Dream-Land (1844) • Impromptu. To Kate Carol (1845) • To Frances (1845) • The Divine Right of Kings (1845) • Epigram for Wall Street (1845) • The Raven (1845) • A Valentine (1846) • Beloved Physician (1847) • An Enigma (1847) • Deep in Earth (1847) • Ulalume (1847) • Lines on Ale (1848) • To Marie Louise (1848) • Evangeline (1848) • Eldorado (1849) • For Annie (1849) • The Bells (1849) • Annabel Lee (1849) • A Dream Within A Dream (1850) • Alone (1875)
Tales
Metzengerstein (1832) • The Duc De L'Omelette (1832) • A Tale of Jerusalem (1832) • Loss of Breath (1832) • Bon-Bon (1832) • MS. Found in a Bottle (1833) • The Assignation (1834) • Berenice (1835) • Morella (1835) • Lionizing (1835) • The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall (1835) • King Pest (1835) • Shadow - A Parable (1835) • Four Beasts in One - The Homo-Cameleopard (1836) • Mystification (1837) • Silence - A Fable (1837) • Ligeia (1838) • How to Write a Blackwood Article (1838) • A Predicament (1838) • The Devil in the Belfry (1839) • The Man That Was Used Up (1839) • The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) • William Wilson (1839) • The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion (1839) • Why the Little Frenchman Wears His Hand in a Sling (1840) • The Business Man (1840) • The Man of the Crowd (1840) • The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841) • A Descent into the Maelstrom (1841) • The Island of the Fay (1841) • The Colloquy of Monos and Una (1841) • Never Bet the Devil Your Head (1841) • Eleonora (1841) • Three Sundays in a Week (1841) • The Oval Portrait (1842) • The Masque of the Red Death (1842) • The Landscape Garden (1842) • The Mystery of Marie Roget (1842) • The Pit and the Pendulum (1842) • The Tell-Tale Heart (1843) • The Gold-Bug (1843) • The Black Cat (1843) • Diddling (1843) • The Spectacles (1844) • A Tale of the Ragged Mountains (1844) • The Premature Burial (1844) • Mesmeric Revelation (1844) • The Oblong Box (1844) • The Angel of the Odd (1844) • Thou Art the Man (1844) • The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq. (1844) • The Purloined Letter (1844) • The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade (1845) • Some Words with a Mummy (1845) • The Power of Words (1845) • The Imp of the Perverse (1845) • The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether (1845) • The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar (1845) • The Sphinx (1846) • The Cask of Amontillado (1846) • The Domain of Arnheim (1847) • Mellonta Tauta (1849) • Hop-Frog (1849) • Von Kempelen and His Discovery (1849) • X-ing a Paragrab (1849) • Landor's Cottage (1849)
Other Works
Essays: Maelzel's Chess Player (1836) • The Daguerreotype (1840) • The Philosophy of Furniture (1840) • A Few Words on Secret Writing (1841) • The Rationale of Verse (1843) • Morning on the Wissahiccon (1844) • Old English Poetry (1845) • The Philosophy of Composition (1846) • The Poetic Principle (1846) • Eureka (1848) Hoaxes: • The Balloon-Hoax (1844) Novels: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1837) • The Journal of Julius Rodman (1840) Plays: Scenes From 'Politian' (1835) Other: The Conchologist's First Book (1839) • The Light-House (1849)
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