Red Death Essay Research Paper Summary of

Red Death Essay, Research Paper

Summary of the story "The Red Death had long devastated the country. No

pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous… There were sharp pains, and

sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The

scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face…shut out [its

victim] from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow men….[T]he whole

seizure, progress, and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an

hour." When Prince Prospero’s "…dominions were half depopulated, he

summoned to his presence a thousand hale and lighthearted friends from among the

knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of

one of his castellated abbeys….A strong and lofty wall girdled it. This wall

had gates of iron." The Prince had the bolts of the gates welded which left

neither means "of ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of

frenzy from within." "The abby was amply provisioned….The prince had

provided all the appliances of pleasure …. buffoons … improvisatori …

ballet dancers … musicians … Beauty … wine. All these and security were

within. Without was the ‘Red Death.’ " "It was toward the close of the

fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, … that the Prince Prospero entertained

his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence….[I]t

was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure

they were grotesque….There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and

appointments….madman fashions…much of the beautiful, much of the wanton,

much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which

might have excited disgust." The masque was held in an imperial suite

consisting of seven rooms. "The apartments were so irregularly disposed

that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp

turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the

right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window

looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These

windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the

prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at

the eastern extremity was…blue-and vividly blue were its windows. The second

chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were

purple. The third was green throughout….The fourth…orange…the

fifth…white…the sixth…violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded

in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the

walls,…[with] a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only,

the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes

were scarlet–a deep blood color." "There was no light of any kind

…within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors…opposite to each window,

a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire…projected its rays through the

tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room….But in the…black

chamber…so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered [was

produced], that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its

precincts at all." It was within this same apartment that there stood a

gigantic ebony clock whose pendulum swang "to and fro with a dull, heavy,

monotonous clang." All who were present froze, and all activities ceased

with the sounding of each hour by the clock. Musicians paused; waltzers stopped

their dance; and the giddy grew pale. "But when the echoes had fully

ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly…." The first six

apartments were densely crowded unlike the seventh. The festivities continued

"until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock.

And then the music ceased…and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and

there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before….[As] the last echoes of

the last chime…sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who

had…become aware of the presence of a masked figure [that no one had detected

before]….[T]here arose at length from the whole company…[an expression] of

disapprobation and surprise-then finally, of terror, of horror, and of

disgust….[T]he mummer had gone so far as to assume the type [and appearance]

of the Red Death. "When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral

image…he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder

either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage.

‘Who dares.…Who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery. Seize him and

unmask him–that we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise, from the

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