Masque of the Red Death By Edgar Allen Poe

Edgar Allen Poe “The Masque of the Red Death” 1) What does each color in each room mean? These colors represent the seven deadly sins which are laziness, lust, gluttony, greed, pride, anger, and covetousness. The colors can also represent the seven stages of man starting from birth, toddler age, childhood, teen age, middle age, old age, and lastly death. Blue is birth, Purple is royalty and power, Green is growth and life, Orange is destruction, White is purity, Violet is knowledge and memory, and Black is death. ) Why do you think Poe arranged the apartments in this manner? The way Prince Prospero arranged the rooms is very peculiar. He did it from east to west according from when the sun would rise to when it would set. When the sun would rise it would mean birth and when it would set death. Just like the rooms blue was on the east so it would mean birth and black being on the west meaning death. 3) What do the colors add to the suspense in the story?
The colors add certain suspense to the story because we do not have a meaning to them. They give you a mysterious out look towards what can happen next. We obviously have the idea that the black room means death and that someone will eventually die. 4) What does the ebony clock represent and what in the story leads you to this conclusion? It represents every hour that they live past the Red Death or until it comes since they cannot escape it. The fact that the clock is ebony meaning black it symbolizes the color of death.
So we can come to the conclusion that sooner or later someone is going to die. 5) Why does the ebony clock reflect Poe’s personal life? It reflects his personal life because Poe had a lot of deaths happen in his life, starting with his parents when he was young. These deaths were all related because at that time tuberculosis was the main cause of death. Reading his biography we soon see that all his loved ones died from tuberculosis. Although it is not clear of what he died from.