Themes and message

Inevitability of death

Death and our mortal nature are intrinsic aspects of human existence, something we cannot escape regardless of our wishes and actions. This idea is explored by Edgar Allan Poe in this short story in an extreme context of a devastating plague. Also, everything in the short story is somehow related to death through the use of multiple symbols: blood, the colors red and black, the clock.

In the story, the protagonist together with other characters, assume they can escape the plague and implicitly death, by retreating to a secluded castle with no contact with the outside world. Prospero’s attitude at the beginning of the short story presents him as oblivious to the reality of death, perhaps because he assumes that being rich provides him the means to ignore death and escape it.

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The nature of reality

The story also deals with versions of reality, raising questions about what is real and what is not in our existence. The author touches upon this theme in several ways.

Firstly, he sets the main event of the plot during a masquerade, in which people are costumed and do not resemble human beings, creatures out of fantasy or dream.

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