The document provides background information on literary techniques like unity of effect, allegory, and mood. It then summarizes the plot of Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death", including details about Prince Prospero locking himself and others in an abbey to escape a plague, holding a masquerade ball, and an uninvited masked guest appearing who is revealed to be the Red Death, killing all in the abbey. The summary explores allegorical meanings and themes of illusions of safety and the inevitability of death.

2. Unity of effect:
• every element - plot, character, setting, and
imagery - helped create a single effect, or
mood.

3. Where does terror begin?
• What makes us afraid of things
that can’t really hurt us? Recall
times when you were frightened
for no good reason. Describe
what triggered your fear and
why. How much of your terror
was the result of your own
imagination?

4. Can a terrifying
feeling ever be
enjoyable?
Under what
circumstances?

5. Allegory
• Characters and objects stand for
ideas outside of the work, such
as good and evil. They are meant
to teach a moral lesson.

6. • Ex. The man pushed the
rock uphill. He struggled
for a long time and
almost reached the top.
As he gave a last heave,
the rock slipped and
rolled all the way down.
He had to begin again.
He had already begun a
hundred times.
• (stand for a person’s life;
the rock represents work,
knowledge, other human
endeavors)

7. Is safety an
illusion?
• How do we protect
ourselves (from theft,
our health). Do the
precautions really keep
the danger away, or do
they just give us an
illusion of safety?
Chose example to
support your answer.

8. Read the
background info
on pg. 429 on the
Black/Red Death
and its
repercussions.

9. Dance of Death
• an image from the period of the Black Death,
where Death whirls figures to their grave. The
image represented society’s fear of the
plague.

10. Symptoms of the
Red Death
• sharp pains, sudden dizziness, profuse
bleeding from the pores, scarlet stains upon
the body

11. How were the victims treated
by other people?
• once the disease
became visible, no
aid was given
• others didn’t want
to get infected,
were terrified of
the sick

12. Mood
• Terror and long lasting hardship
• Fear- people died within a half hour

13. Prince Prospero
• not daunted by the disease, he is happy and
not upset by his lands being depopulated
• calls 1000 of his friends to retire with him at
an abbey, the friends are all of noble birth

14. Precautions taken by the residents of
the abbey
• welded the bolts so nothing
could come in or go out
• forgot the external world -
could take care of itself
• had ample provisions
• refused to grieve or think
• focused on pleasure

15. Reread lines 9-23. Which details
suggest a mythical or fairy-tale setting?
• the knights, the
abbey, the prince,
the ladies of the
court
• unrealistic idea of
hiding in the abbey
indefinitely

16. Gothic Room
• the black room with red mosaic window; light
makes the room look like blood; those that go
in the room look wild and bloody - Red Death
• Most scary of the rooms

17. Have you or someone
you know ever tried to
escape something that
seemed unavoidable?
How does that
experience help you
understand what
Prospero was trying to
do?

18. Why did Prospero choose to hold the ball just as “the pestilence raged
most furiously”?
• after many months living in confinement, the people
needed a diversion to maintain their spirits and
endure boredom
• Prospero refused to consider the threat outside the
abbey.

19. Do you think the
prince’s precautions will
protect those inside the
abbey? Explain.

20. Masquerade
• has a surreal and fantastic
element
• since reality was bleak and
Prospero wanted to exclude
reality from the abbey, he
emphasized fantasy
• masks allow for people to
play roles, become
someone else, and forget
their troubles.

21. Nature can be a source of disease and
destruction
• normally, nature was a source
of awe and inspiration to
Romantics;
• however, death and decay is a
part of life, like in the poems
• Nature is a source of power in
all the poems and stories of
the Romantics, sometimes the
power is positive, sometimes
dark and negative

22. Clock
• serves as a reminder of time
passing, the human life span, and
death.
• It stops all action with the chime -
the giddiest turn pale, the
musicians stop their music, the
elder people turned to meditation

23. • As soon as the chimes are done, the
people return to their festivities.
• Not serious about examining their
life and thinking about the afterlife.

24. Prince’s tastes and
décor
• Gothic, grotesque, some
think him mad,
phantasm, glitter, glare,
bizarre.
• His decorations were
beautiful, disgusting,
terrifying, delirious
fancies.
• Figures with mismatched
parts. Dreams wander
and live in the rooms

25. Midnight
• Masked figure noticed
• At midnight; the chimes
are longest and allow for
more mediation; People
take more time away
from revels and look
about the room, noticing
Death.
• Midnight also symbolizes
the supernatural and
possibly the end of life

26. What details in lines 80-111 suggest that the
partygoers feel an illusion of safety?
• Illusion of safety: Prospero’s
followers do not think him mad;
the laughter when the peal of
the clock fades.
• Less safe than before: the fact
that no one goes into the
seventh apartment

27. Uninvited guest
• elicits terror, horror and
disgust from the onlookers;
• had no manners;
• tall, gaunt, in garments
from the grave, mask
resembled a corpse;
• face of Red Death -
splattered in blood, his
mask looks real; scares
even the crazy prince and
the mad guests

28. Prince’s response
• at first with a strong
shudder, then with red
rage; he is frightened of
the Red Death, and isn’t as
secure in the abbey as he
pretends to be
• Wants him unmasked

29. Allegory
• The prince’s name
suggests prosperity, or
good fortune - ironic

30. How did the Red Death
get into the abbey?
• one of the guests might
have been infected
• the plague was
punishment for prince’s
selfishness and
purposeful distancing
from the world’s
hardships

31. Themes
• Their illusions of safety are shattered.
• The larger meaning may be that all illusions of
escaping death are foolish

32. How and why should these characters have behaved
differently? Would it have changed the outcome?

33. What does each of the following
reveal about Prince Prospero?
• his response to the crisis in his country (lines
1-12)
– Self centered and callous
• his solution to the threat of disease (lines 15-
23)
– seeks pleasure and company
• his plans for the masquerade (lines 86-94)
– a little odd, possibly insane, enjoys a garish
spectacle
• his response to the masked figure (lines 144-
152)
– he is arrogant and does not accept challenges
to his authority

34. Allegorical Meanings
• Prince Prospero:
– human arrogance. Details: his name and position,
his plan for the ball, his lack of fear of the room.
• The abbey:
– illusions of safety. Details: the guests lock
themselves in it and revel.
• The rooms:
– the stages of life. Details: seven rooms going from
east to west; Prospero races through them, death
comes at the end.
• The clock:
– time, warning of death. Details: its effect on the
guests; its location in the room of death.
• The masked stranger:
– death. Details: his costume; he kills Prospero and
the guests.

35. • Consider the desperate measures
the characters take to achieve
safety. In what ways, if any, do
their behaviors reflect real-world
responses to a deadly threat?
Support your answer with details.
– Many people run away from crises
because of fear and try to forget
their problems through reckless
pleasures.

36. Some critics have argued
that “The Masque of the
Red Death” takes place
in Prospero’s mind. Cite
details from the story
that support this
interpretation. How does
this view change the
story’s meaning?

37. • words like dreams, fancies,
delirious, and phantasms
• the comment that some thought
Prospero mad
• the unrealistic nature of the story;
and the fact that Prospero is the
only distinct character.
• Not an allegory of life and death
and more an illustration of
madness