![]() ![]() The layout of the rooms makes it impossible to see from one to the other.īut the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. Prospero and his court believe they will be immune to the disease. This pestilence is an allusion to the Black Plague and possibly the smallpox epidemic of Poe’s lifetime. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. Blood was its Avatar and its seal-the redness and the horror of blood. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. The "Red Death" had long devastated the country. The rapid pace of the disease adds to the heightened drama of the tale. ![]() “The Masque of the Red Death” By Edgar Allan Poe (annotations and literary analysis by Mrs. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |