"The Masque of the Red Death"

“Masking the Signs”

            Symbolism is a tricky literary device used by many famous authors. Such authors like W. W. Jacobs, Robert Frost, and Edger Allan Poe. While a common literary device used in the world of short stories, books, and poems, there is a certain technique to hiding a deeper meaning in a piece of writing. In “The Masque of the Red Death,” Poe has symbolism to portray a more profound religious meaning.

            In this short story there are seven completely separate rooms, each expressing its own feeling by use of color. The first six rooms in this story are relevant to the time humans will spend on Earth as mortals. The reader can see that trace of symbolism using the knowledge that in the Christian world, people believe that God created this world in six days and the seventh day he rested; a day in Gods eyes is equal to about 1,000 years here on Earth. After that, most believe that God has given His children another six days to live on Earth and enjoy all it has to offer and on the seventh day His Son will come again. As the guests of the masque go about from one solidly colored room to the next one can get the feeling that the time on Earth is going by, getting closer and closer to the day when Jesus Christ will come again and the wicked shall be burned.
            In addition to that, Poe has put in some scriptural references. Near the end of the story at the scene when the ebony clock has just struck twelve and the presence of a mysterious masked figure has just been noticed and disapprobation spread throughout the party, the author wrote, “But the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod.”  Herod was a king during the era that Jesus was born and acted intensely when he ordered all the babies two years old and under to be killed. When Poe says “out Heroded Herod,” he is explaining the thing that the masquerade guests were murmuring of: that what this stranger did by dressing up like the Red Death was unnecessary and extreme considering their situation. 
            Simultaneously, the renowned writer makes the characters another example of this literary device. In the story, the Prince Prospero was happy and joyful, thinking he could escape this plague because of the position he was in and the power he had to construct a large barrier between him and the outside world that was full of disease. There are people in this world who don’t agree with Christians in the idea that God may come again to this Earth and they try and block out everything dealing with that. They may even go as far as to belittle those that do. Much like the Prince in the end when he confronts the Red Death by going up to him and demanding, “Who dares? […] Who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery?” The guests who fear this stranger and shy away represent those that fear God and his power. Guests who jump after him and attempt to hurt him and reveal the underlying personage can show the reader that they more like the Prince Prospero.

            Reading writings by more advanced authors, a reader can become more familiar with the presence of symbolism. Edger Allan Poe gracefully wrote “The Masque of the Red Death” and inserted symbolism that depicted a modern Christian world that one can pick-up while reading it.