The Rooms From Life to Death :: essays research papers

     In Edgar Allan Poes short story, "The Masque of the Red Death", Poe use umpteen symbolsto 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 indisputable kind of mood, emotion or coincidences in life.Poes story takes place in seven connected but carefully separated rooms. This remindsthe reader of the past logical implication 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 acquisition into seven subjects there were seven deadly sins with seven corresponding cardinal virtues. Therefore, an allegorical reading of this story suggests thatthe seven rooms represent the seven stages of ones life, from kind to death, through which the prince pursues a figure masked as a victim of t he Red Death, only to die himself in the final chamber of eternal night. The eastmost 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 colourize 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 footrace from east to west. This progression is symbolically significant because it represents the life cycle of a day. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, with night symbolizing death. What transforms this set of symbols into an allegory, is the pass on symbolic treatment of the twenty-four hour life cycle. This translates to the realm of human beings. This progression from east to west, performed by both Prospero and the mysterious guest, s ymbolizes the human journey from cede to death. Poe crafts the last ,black room as the ominous endpoint, the room the guests fear just as they fear death.