The Masque of the Red Death Video

“The ‘Red Death’ had long devastated the country. No pestilence or horror had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avator and its seal– the redness and the horror of blood.” So begins Edgar Allen Poe’s 1850 short story, “The Masque of the Red Death,” which tells the story of a ruler who tries to conquer death by inviting a thousand of his healthy friends to join him in his abbey, locked away from the outside world.

Prince Prospero’s abbey is described as an “extensive and magnificent structure” with strong walls and gates of iron. The courtiers bring “furnaces” and “hammers” and, upon entering, “weld the bolts” such that no one can enter or exit. The prince provides food and pleasure inside: “All these and security were within. Without was the ‘Red Death.’”

After five or six months, Prospero holds a grand masked ball in the seven rooms of an imperial suite, which are segregated by sharp turns. Gothic stained glass windows on each side of the room look out into the surrounding corridor. Each room features a different color, which matches the color of the window: the first room is blue, the second purple, the third green, the fourth orange, the fifth white, and the sixth violet. Opposite each window, in the corridor outside the room, was a brazier of fire, whose light shines through the stained glass windows.

In the seventh room, however, while the dominant color is black, the windows are a scarlet red. Here, the light from the fire creates such a ghastly effect that most of the guests avoid the room altogether. Moreover, a giant ebony clock’s pendulum swings ominously at the revelers, causing everyone to pause in fright. When the hourly chimes cease, the musicians and masqueraders return to their celebration, with laughter and renewed ease.

When the clock strikes midnight, the revelers, in their pause, notice a figure among them, “tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask appeared like the face of of a corpse, but most frighteningly of all, the figure’s clothing was dabbled in blood and his face sprinkled with scarlet: he had taken on the appearance of the Red Death.

Prospero, in the Blue Room, is enraged by this presence, screaming to his courtiers, “who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery?” and demands that he be seized and unmasked so they can hang him in the morning.

The figure stalks slowly and steadily through the apartments, and no one attempts to apprehend him. Suddenly, Prospero rushes through all six rooms, approaching the figure with a dagger held high. The dagger falls to the carpet, however, in the black room, and Prospero falls to the ground, dead.

Suddenly, the masqueraders rush the figure of the Red Death, but find no form beneath his exterior. They now understand the figure is the Red Death itself. One by one, each reveler dies. The clock goes out and the fires all extinguish.