Study Notes: Masque of the Red Death, Edgar Allen Poe

Reading Notes – Masque of the Red Death

by Edgar Allen Poe
In an imaginary country a disease called the Red Death is
killing thousands of people, but the ruler of the country,
Prince Prospero, is still happy and shuts himself away in a
castle together with a large number of his friends. There they
dance and play as they wait for the Red Death to leave the
country. The Prince has enough food and drink to last for a
long time. After everyone is inside the castle, he seals the
doors shut so that no one can leave, and no one can enter.
Inside the castle a great party takes place. All his guests wear
costumes and masks. Some are funny, some are ugly, and
some are frightening. The apartments where the party takes
place are made up of seven rooms which the Prince Prospero
has decorated especially for this party. These rooms run from
East to West and each is decorated in a different color. Each
has a large window, looking out onto a corridor. The last room, which is black, is illuminated by a red
window. In it there is a large, black clock with a large bell that rings on every hour. When the clock rings,
the music stops and all the guests stop dancing. Most people are afraid to enter this last room.
At midnight people notice a person whose costume is especially horrible. As the story teller describes the
costume, we realize that this guest is dressed as a corpse, dead of plague. This frightens people so much
that the Prince challenges the man, who first comes and stands in front of him, then runs away into the
center of the castle.
The Prince follows the man to the heart of the castle and tries to kill him but falls instantly dead. The
people then grab the man who has killed the Prince, but find nothing but an empty costume. Now, without
characters, how will the story end?
Focus

Who is the character in the red mask? Give reasons for your answer.
Questions

1. How is life outside the abbey different from life inside?

2. How do you explain the effect of the ebony clock‟s chimes on the guests?
3. Why do you think that no one goes into the seventh room?
4. What effect does the man in the red mask have on the other guests?
5. Why does Prince Prospero get so mad?
6. Why did no one stop the masked figure from walking all the way through the seven rooms?|
7. List the colors of the rooms in the order the author has given. Note they are arranged from East to West.
What do you think is the significance of these colors and the arrangement of the rooms?
8. Does this story mean anything to you? Why do you think so many people like this story?

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 Study Notes: Masque of the Red Death, Edgar Allen Poe
Vocabulary
devastated (1): to destroy a large part of
something, to kill a lot of people.
pestilence (2): plague, any of a number of very
contagious diseases that rapidly kill large
numbers of people. Plagues killed millions of
people all over the world throughout the Middle
Ages. In 1665 a plague killed half the population
of London in only a few months.
Avatar (3): A sign; in Hindu religion an avatar
is the form a god takes on earth, as a man. Poe
has capitalized this word, possibly to associate
the plague with the Angel of Death or with some
other supernatural force. In modern English, an
avatar is an image on a computer screen that
represents a person or a player in a networked
computer game.
profuse (5): freely, in great quantities,
abundantly – here he means that blood came out
of the skin and would not stop, turning the
victim bright red.
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scarlet (5): a deep red color.
pest-ban (7): pest is another word for plague,
and ban means to prevent something from
happening. The pest-ban means to shut the
victim away to die since anyone coming near
may also get sick and die.
were the incidents of (8): happened within +
period of time.
dauntless (10): without fear.
sagacious (10): wise.
hale and light-hearted (11): healthy and
happy.
knights and dames of his court (12): high
ranking men and women who are the friends of
the prince.
eccentric yet august (14): strange but also
elegant.
lofty (14): high.
girdled it in (15): surrounded it.
courtiers (15): friends of the prince.
welded (16): a process to join two pieces of
metal by melting them together.
means (16): way, method.
ingress nor egress (17): entry or exit.
frenzy (17): panic, pandemonium.
amply provisioned (18): to have enough food
and water for a long time.
bid defiance (18): avoid.
contagion (19): disease.
folly (19): foolishness.
 Study Notes: Masque of the Red Death, Edgar Allen Poe

buffoons (21): clowns. brazier (40): an iron pot to

hold a fire inside a
building, for heat or light.
glaringly (41): very bright,
too much light. The sun
glares at mid-day.
multitude (42): very
many, too many to count.
gaudy and fantastic appearances (42): the
people looked ugly, strange, inhuman.
improvisatori (22): entertainers, actors. This is
an Italian word, as is the name of the prince, ghastly in the extreme (44): very frightening,
Prospero, which means wealthy or prosperous. horrifying to see.
Prospero is a name also used by Shakespeare,
bold (45): courageous, controlling their fear.
whose plays were often set in Italy, which was,
at that time, a center of wealth and culture in ebony (48): a very hard wood, totally black in
Europe. color.

abroad (25): outside the castle. pendulum (48): part of an

old-fashioned clock, it hangs
masked ball (26): a party where everyone
down from the clock and
wears an elaborate costume and a face mask.
swings to the left and right,
voluptuous scene (27): if you saw the party using the force of gravity to
you would be shocked by the excessive luxury help power the mechanical
of the place and the sexual decadence of the clock.
people.
to and fro (47): back and forth (literary or
masquerade (27): a masked ball. This is a formal word):.
French word. The spelling of the word masque,
clang (48): a sound a bell makes; loud and
in the title of the story, is also French. The
startling and unplesant.
English spelling is „mask‟.
brazen lungs (50): Poe‟s description of a bell.
Gothic window (28): a tall
Brazen means made of brass but it also means to
window, often with a pointed
be bold and offensive to others, to be loud and
arch and set with colored or
obnoxious, not to care what others think. He
stained glass making a
describes the
picture.
bell as “lungs”
pursued (29): followed. to give them an
almost human
vividly (32): bright
character, since
panes (33): glass only humans
hue (37): color speak.
waltzers (53): dancers. A waltz is a highly
formal European dance style popular among the

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 Study Notes: Masque of the Red Death, Edgar Allen Poe

upper classes, particularly from the 17th to 19th disapprobation (85): disapproval; they do not
centuries. like this person.
ceased their evolutions (53): they stopped phantasm (87): an illusion, a fantasy,
dancing. Waltzers dance in circles; evolution something that is not real
means to move in a circle.
out-Heroded Herod (89): Poe has made this
giddiest (55): happy and carefree. word up. Herod the Great was the Jewish ruler
of Jerusalem under the Romans just before the
sedate (55): calm and serious, opposite of
birth of Jesus, upon whom be peace. Herod was
giddy.
famous for his excess and for his tyranny. Read
reverie (56): thought about him here:
pervaded (56): filled http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_the_Great
The Bible records that before the birth of Jesus,
disconcert and tremulousness (61): confusion news came to him that a boy had been born in
and fear Bethleham who would grow up to be king. In
revel (62): party response to this, Herod ordered his soldiers to
kill all the male infants and young boys of
duke (62): a title for a prince. A duke rules a
Bethleham. You can read about these stories
duchy, or part of a kingdom. Prince Charles, the
here:
heir to the British throne, is Prince of Wales and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_In
Duke of Cornwall. Wales is a principality while
nocents
Cornwall is a Duchy. In the past, a prince or a
duke would rule in the name of the King.
peculiar (63): strange
embellishments (67): the decoration
fete (68): party, a French word.
grotesque (69): extremely ugly and frightening
disgust (73): to feel repelled, to feel sick when
you see something that is very horrible.
stalk (74): to walk slowly and follow
something, as a lion slowly follows a gazelle,
watching and waiting for a chance to strike and
kill.
jest (92): a joke
writhe (74): to slowly twist and turn your body,
company (93): group of people, assembly
as when in great pain.
wit (94): intended to amuse, or be funny
cessation (78): to cease is to stop.
propriety (94): to be appropriate, to follow the
crept (80): past of „creep‟; to move very slowly
rules
forward.
gaunt (95): very thin, so thin you can see his
chime (82): a sound of a bell
bones

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 Study Notes: Masque of the Red Death, Edgar Allen Poe
shrouded (95): completely covered, a shroud
covers the dead before burial
habiliments (95): clothing, this is a French
word.
visage (96): face, this is also a French word.
countenance (97): face
corpse (97): a dead body
scrutiny (97): examination, inspection
cheat (98): deception, ruse, game. This did not
appear to be a costume, it was real.
endured … by (98): They might have tolerated
it, or ignored it.
mummer (99): a person who wears a mask. An
old word for „actor‟.
spectral (102): ghostly, not natural.
brow (100): Forehead
blasphemous (blasphemy) (107): Something
that is offensive to religion.
unmask (107): take off his mask.
hang … from the battlements (108): kill by
hanging from the walls of the castle.
robust (111): powerful and physically strong.
hushed (111): quiet
awe (115): fear
unimpeded (116): without anything to stop him
the prince’s person (117): a literary way of
saying, “within a yard (about 1 meter): of the
prince”: he came right to the prince and stood in
front of him.
impulse (118): movement, motion
shrank (118): moved back
rage (123): uncontrollable anger
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bore aloft a drawn dagger
(125): drawn dagger: a
fighting knife taken out of its
covering; bore aloft: to hold
something up high, over
your head (bore is the past of
bear – to carry something): –
(bear, bore, born):.
impetuosity (125): moving with great force and
violence
retreating (126): moving away
having attained the extremity of… (126):
once he reached the farthest end.
confronted (127): to face or to challenge
sharp cry (127): a loud, short scream.
prostate (129): face down, on the ground.
seizing the mummer (131): They all grabbed
and held the masked man after he killed the
prince.
gasp (132): a sound of fear made when
inhaling.
grave-cerements (133): shroud, cloth for
covering the dead
untenanted (134): empty – there was no man
inside the clothes
tangible form (134): something that you can
touch
blood-bedewed (136): Poe has probably made
this word up too. Dew is the water that falls on
the land in early morning as the cool air warms
in the sun. It falls lightly on everything, like a
fine rain; bedewed means covered in dew. Poe
says that blood covered the inside of the castle,
like dew.
despairing (137): without hope
 Study Notes: Masque of the Red Death, Edgar Allen Poe

gay (138): happy illimitable (139): without limits

expired (138): a fire goes out or dies. Expire dominion (139): rule, authority
also means to die.
Further study

E-Text and audio of the story: http://www.adamsmithacademy.org/etext/TheMasqueOfTheRedDeath.html

(reading is slow and clear).
Eyewitness to History, Black Death of 1348: http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/plague.htm
BBC History, The Black Death: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/black_01.shtml

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