A summary of “The Mask of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe
The Mask of the Red Death is an excellent allegorical tale that tells the story of a mysterious and abominable disease that decimates the population of an imaginary land. Symptoms of this terrible epidemic include severe pain, dizziness, heavy bleeding, and red spots on the bodies and faces of the victims. This plague kills in thirty minutes and consequently the red spot on a man causes people to reject him. The “happy and intrepid” ruler of the land, Prince Prospero, with a thousand of his noble and healthy friends are hiding in a “crenellated abbey.” This place is stocked with enough food as it celebrates festivals leaving its subjects to suffer affliction.
After five or six months, Prospero chooses to have a grand masquerade ball in the seven rooms of an imperial suite that runs from east to west. Instead of a long hall, the prince possesses chambers that are arranged by sharp curves and tall stained glass windows on either side that dominate the surrounding corridor. Each room is a different color with the first blue, the second purple, the third green, the fourth orange, the fifth white, and the sixth purple. As for the seventh room, it is completely black velvet, but the windows are a deep blood red. Guests stay away from the seventh room as the lights shining through the window from the hallways create a ghastly effect. In this room there is also a giant ebony clock, whose pendulum swings ominously and the hourly chime was so haunting that it made everyone pause in fear until the chimes dimmed as everyone nervously resumed their actions.
On the day of the party, the costumes of the masked men are wild and grotesque and the party is like a “dream crowd” despite the prevailing interruption of entertainment by the ebony clock. The party is in full swing when at midnight the clock strikes a spooky twelve chimes and everyone stops as usual and suddenly a corpse-clad figure appears including a terrifyingly compelling mask with the characteristic red stain. He’s dressed as the Red Death! This unexpected and terrifying intrusion makes Prince Prospero nervous, who orders his guards to capture and unmask the “ghostly image.”
None of the guests, not even Prospero, has the audacity to grab the visitor and the Red Death slowly glides past the prince in the blue room and passes from room to room pointing towards the black room. However, enraged and ashamed of his own cowardice, Prospero runs through the rooms until he reaches the edge of the last room when he confronts the masked man and falls dead. Surprised guests fall over the immobile figure and discover in dismay that there is nothing underneath the mask and disguise. The Red Death “like a thief in the night” hits them as one by one they succumb to death and when the last party-goer dies, the ebony clock stops ticking, “and the Darkness and Decadence and the Red Death they had unlimited dominance over everything. “