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Continuation

The Tormented Life of Edgar Allan Poe

“The Short Life” 1809-1849

• Background• Born 1809-1849

• His mother died during his

youth and his father

abandoned them

• After the death of his

grandmother, Poe married

his 13-year-old cousin,

Virginia in 1835

• Virginia died in 1847

• Died in 1849

• Education of Poe • Entered and dropped

from both the

University of Virginia

and West Point

• Ran into debt and

started borrowing

money, gambling and

getting deeper into

debt

• Writing Style of Poe • Wrote in a Gothic

Style

• Deep and intense

• Explorations of а

world of dream and

of nightmare

• In his stories the

past is darker,

more ominous and

oppresses his

heroes and

heroines

• Poe’s Characters • Many of his

characters are filled

with madness

• Obsessed with the

irrational side of the

mind

• Famous Works– Short Stories

– Poems

• The Pit and the Pendulum

• The Fall of the House of Usher

• Tell-Tale Heart

• The Cask of the Amontillado

• The Masque of the Red Death

• The Raven

• Lenore

Background

• The Masque of Red Death– Background

• Poe’s fictional Red Death is probably based on the Black Death, which killed as many as two thirds of the population in some regions in Europe

• Poe calls the plague “the Red Death” because victims oozed blood from painful sores.

Bubonic Plague- Black Death

• What caused it?

• Decimated 1/3 of

Europe’s

population.

• Extremely

contagious

• What nursey song

refers to it?

Name the Song• The invariable sneezing and falling down

in modern English versions have given

would-be origin finders the opportunity to

say that the rhyme dates back to the Great

Plague. A rosy rash, they allege, was a

symptom of the plague, and posies of

herbs were carried as protection and to

ward off the smell of the disease.

• Summary • In this story a fourteenth-century prince gives a costume party, or masque, to try to forget about the epidemic raging all around him.

• A sense of dread fills the hearts of the characters and readers as a sense of inevitability grows during the course of the story.

Literary Focus

• Themes • The insignificance of wealth and power

• Man vs. Nature

• Inevitability

• Fear

• Time

• Avoidance

• Human weakness and fear

• Arrogance

• Death

• Allegory • A narrative that is really a double story. One story takes place on the surface. Under the surface the story’s characters and events represent abstract ideas.

• Almost every element of this story has symbolic connections: From the colors of the windows, to the choice of masks. As you read the text, try to identify what each color could represent!

•Symbol• Something that is itself and yet also represents something else:

– Can be read both as a chilling ghost story and as an allegory representing the inevitability of death.

– Prospero’s name (Prospero means prosperous)

– The stranger’s appearance (Dressed like the Grim Reaper or Death)

– The arrangement of the seven halls

• The rooms of the palace, lined up in a series, allegorically represent the stages of life.

• Their colors (black=death), (red=blood)

• Clock marking the inevitable passage of time.

Characters

• Characters

– Prince Prospero

– The Stranger

• Prince Prospero invites a thousand lords and ladies to escape death by living luxuriously in his castle until the pestilence passes.

• To entertain his guests Prospero hosts a masquerade party that takes place in seven halls, each a different color.

• At the stroke of midnight, a tall figure in a blood-splattered burial costume appears.

• Prospero demands that his friends seize the intruder, but everyone is frozen with fear as the stranger slowly walks through the rooms.

Keep in mind: Masque of Red

Death is an Allegory.

• An allegory’s purpose is to expose you to

a strong theme. There are prevalent

symbols: colors, clock, costumes,

masques, names

• Look for the foreshadowing.

• Poe is a classic author, and his stories can

be quite disturbing.