Themes and Symbols in Poes The Masque (Mask) of the Red Death Essay

Themes and Symbols in The Masque of the Red Death The literature of Edgar Allan Poe can either be soak uped as extremely unprejudiced or incredibly complicated, and his short story The Masque of The Red Death is no exception. This story can either be viewed as a simple story of horror, with no deeper imbedded meanings, or it can be broken low-spirited into many symbols with several possible meanings. Perhaps this story tells of the struggle mingled with man and death, perhaps it speaks of an authors struggles and dreams, or perhaps it was merely written as a tale of horror. Arguments can be made to support entirely of these overall themes, and there are even more points of view offered well-nigh the story that can be explored if someone wishes to find a view with which he or she can better understand or identify. unrivaled possible theme of the story is that it is nothing more than the imaginings of a conceive of mind. According to Richard Wilbur, this is partially shown th rough the geometry contained in the story. He states that, Poe quite a explicitly identifies regular angular forms with everyday reason, and the circle, oval, or fluid arabesque with otherworldly resourcefulness (269). If Poe used unusually shaped rooms to show dreams, and the supernatural, then with his definition of the seven chambers being, so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced provided little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or cardinal yards, and at each turn a novel effect (qtd. In Wilbur 269), it would appear as though either a dream is in progress, or something supernatural is taking place. In this interpretation of the story, Poe is taken quite literally in some ways, such as his terming the lords and ladies at the get up ball as being dr... ... to a reader someoneally, and give that person an opportunity to form an individual opinion over it. Works Cited Etienne, Louis. The American Storytellers-Edgar Allan Poe. Affidavits of Genius. Ed. Jean Alexander. Port Washington, N.Y. Kennikat Press, 1971. 134-139. Halliburton, David. Edgar Allan Poe A Phenomenological View. Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press, 1973. Poe, Edgar Allan. The Masque Of The Red Death. link Literature across Cultures. Eds. Gilbert H. Muller and John A. Williams. New York McGraw-Hill, 1994. 495-498. Wilbur, Richard. The stomach of Poe. The Recognition of Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. Eric W. Carlson. Ann Arbor The University of Michigan Press, 1966. 269-277. Womack, Martha. Edgar Allan Poes The Masque of the Red Death. The Poe Decoder. Online. Internet. 20 may 1998.