Symbols are everywhere, embodying meanings larger than life. One can find symbolism in music, literature, and even in decoration! They play huge roles in specific themes or emotions in certain situations. In “Masque of the Red Death”, by Edgar Allan Poe, death is personified, terror reigns, and tragedy strikes, as he tells a short tale of the infamous “Black Plague” that reigned over Europe in the middle ages, and how death is absolutely inevitable.
In the story, Poe used an intense amount of symbolism within the seven colored chambers to establish the mood of the story, the seven stages of life, and to emphasize the terror of the situation. The Mood of the Story Poe’s use of color sets the eerie mood of the entire story. Firstly, the two colors used in the last chamber, red and black, create the mood of chaos because of their meanings of death and blood. Also, because it is very different from the other rooms, it creates a sense of suspense.
As Poe consistently relates back to the black chamber, he is maintaining the mood that he created in the beginning. In the start of the story, after Poe describes the uniqueness of each colored chamber, he finally reaches the last chamber, saying that the effect of the yellow brazier illuminating the black room and the blood red window panes, “was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all” (Paragraph 4).
Everybody who took even just a tiny peek at the last chamber was immediately overcome with a sense of fear and danger, because the color black represents death, and their fear of walking inside the chamber symbolizes their fear of death itself. Also, the pattern of the colors of the rooms helps to represent chaos and create a mood of disorder, even though the mood contradicts how the colors are actually ordered, as explained in a literary criticism about Poe’s color usage in “Masque of the Red Death.
Poe uses the colors in the Newtonian prism, but he orders them completely out of sequence intentionally, and “a succession of tones and hues is thus created. The resulting optical shock is all the more effective because the reader sees these colors in constant reflecting motion, due to the flames that throw flickering light from the corridor through the tinted window in each room” (Du Plessis, paragraph 2). Poe sequences the colors of the Newtonian prism completely out of their original order, but yet, they are still in an orderly fashion.
The color of each specific room is derived from the color of the room before it, so it is still in an organized sequence. The final influence creating the mood of disorder is at the mention of the black chamber because the color black cannot be derived from the color before it, or any other color, therefore it ends the ordered sequence that was created before, Both pieces of evidence support the idea that Poe’s use of color sets the mood of the story, because from the beginning to the end, Poe makes certain to incorporate the importance of the colored chambers and what they symbolize.
Seven Stages of Life From the very beginning of the story, the seven colored chambers resemble the seven stages of life. As described at the beginning of the story, The rooms were so different from one another, “that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time” (Paragraph 4). This is said in the same way to mean that you will only get a tiny glimpse into the future. To go more in depth, Poe uses very specific colors for each room, laying them out extremely carefully and precisely, and as an end result, the colors of each room hold a meaning to a specific time in a person’s life.
Even a person who would analyze the meaning of each room would only get a tiny glimpse of each part of their life; no details. Poe lays each color out specifically for this reason. Also, the course that each and every character in the story would walk in the end is from birth to death. As the personified Red Death walks from the blue room to the black room,” it walks the course of life, leading from birth to death. Prospero follows that course when he chases it: he runs from the blue room to the black room, where he dies. His followers also rush into the black room to unmask the Red Death, and also die” (Shmoop).
Literally and metaphorically, the characters walk the course of life by walking from the blue room, which resembles birth, to the black room, in which resembles death, therefore creating the irony that the colors of the seven chambers do symbolize the seven stages of life. Both pieces of evidence prove that the seven colored chambers withhold the symbolism of the seven stages of life, by showing how the characters in the story travel their journey to death while running through each chamber, and by breaking down Poe’s intended “mysterious” color choice for each of the seven chambers.
Horror Unleashed Poe’s use of color magnifies the sense of terror and horror that is already being experienced by readers and characters alike. First of all, The black chamber is seen the whole time as a symbol of terror by the reader and characters. The chamber in itself obviously spooks the characters, which is evident in their continuous act of avoiding it. The black chamber is the only one whose colors fail to correspond to the color of the window panes, and “the panes here were scarlet–a deep blood colour.
Now in no one of the seven apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire, that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room” (Paragraph 4).
Also in the black chamber, there is a huge ebony clock, whose “pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to harken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused revery or meditation” (Paragraph 5).
Both of these quotes show the true terror that was bestowed upon the characters in the story. The description of the chamber and the contents within it send chills down the reader’s spine because they know this chamber will be an important part of the story. The suspense creates terror. In the short story, the color yellow also illuminates the sense of terror already existing throughout the pages. The color yellow, you’ll notice, is ignored when describing the colors of each room.
But Poe does not fail to make this color a very important detail in the story’s symbolism. The color yellow is the fiery brazier that illuminates each room and corresponds with every single color. “The result is a stunning kaleidoscope effect, a sort of visual nightmare that leaves an immediate and disturbing impression upon characters and readers alike” (du Plessis, paragraph 6). Poe intentionally seems to leave the color yellow out at first, but then restores it as the flames in the brazier, making it blend with all of the colors, and it creates a sense of chaos and fear because it highlights the reality of the situation. The colors black and yellow are proven to represent fear and terror in the story by highlighting the
