The original spelling of Poe's short story's title was
mask; however, it was later changed to masque,
thus tying the title to the eighteenth century masqued balls in which people
disguised themselves so well that classes easily intermingled in secret erotic
enjoyment. The revelers of Prince Prospero are just such masqued guests where the
prince had "provided all the appliances of pleasure." The plague to which "The Masque
of the Red Death" relates is the plague of tuberculosis that took the lives of many,
including Poe's mother, his foster mother, and finally, his young bride. That this
disease plagued many others during the Industrial Age is a matter of historical record.
Like the "red death" of Poe's story, tuberculoisis, or consumption as it was called in
Poe's day, was disguished by the expectorating of
blood.
The style of Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" is
also appropriate to his time as the Gothic genre was in vogue after Mary Shelley's
publication of Frankenstein, and in America Washington Irving's
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Along with gothic literature, there were
the impressionist artists, who portrayed objects in the play of light, as Poe did. With
such light upon the faces of the guests, they become disturbing and grotesque. This
transformation of what is seen contributes greatly to the overall effect of Poe's
allegorical tale.
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