Gothic literature- Jaidyn Smith

SUMMARY

The story started out by desribing the setting and how the Red Death Plague is going around the land and sweeping people to instant death. The main character, Prince Prospero, confined himself in his castle with other nobles to make sure they are not infected with the diease. After a couple months the Prince decided that he wanted to throw a big mascerade ball because he felt like the plaque would have been defeated by this point. After hours of partying, a mysterious man showed up. The man was dressed in a bloody robe and a masked to make it look like he was a victim from the Red Death. Everyone thought this was disrectpful and wanted to kill the victim for itś actions. The Prince chased after the suspicious figure and as soon as they made eye contact the Prince dropped to death. Everyone else followed after him and they all dropped dead as well. There was no escaping the Red Death.

SUMMARY

Haunted Castle

Example:

“This was an extensive and magnificent structure the creation of the prince’s own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron.”

Example #1

Analysis:

This sets the mood of the story and explains the setting

Entrapment

Quote:

“The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within”

Analysis:

Everyone was now inside. They used hammers and welded bolts to keep from people entering or exiting the castle. The prince was secluded inside for 5 to 6 months before contact with the “outside world”.

Example #2

Entrapment

Quote:

“And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall.”

Analysis:

There was no way to escape the Red Death. Everyone was stuck within the castle which gave the story a Gothic feeling.

Example #3

DREAMING

Quote:

“To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact a multitude of dreams. And these-the dreams-writhed in and about, taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps.”

Example

#4

Analysis:

Everything's just a little too wild, a little too intense, a little too frenzied, and a little too "grotesque" to be real.

“Writhing dancers” ,”swelling music”, “giddiness” shows that it is chaotic, uncontrolled and all

Cemetary

Quote:

“The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded form head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse”

Example

#5

Analysis:

Although this isn’t happening in a cemetery it provides the imagery of one. It makes the reader think of someone that would look like they were rising from the dead.

Revenge

Quote:

“And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all”

Example

#6

Analysis:

This is the last line of the short story. I interpreted it as revenge. The Red Death didn’t like how everyone was celebrating and underestimated its power; so it killed everyone that attended the ball.

ENTRAPMENT

Quote:

“When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hald and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys”

Example #7

Analysis:

The prince didn’t just isolate himself from the Red Death but also friends and people apart of his court. It was his job to protect them as well so the castellated abbeys was the place that they sent them.

UNEXPLAINED SUPERNATURAL

Quotes:

“His vesture was dabbled in blood- and his broad brow,m with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror”

“Seize him and unmask him-that we may know whom we have to hang, at sunrise from the battlements!”

Example

#8

Analysis:

At first everyone at the ball thought the Red Death was just someone dressed up in a rude costume but later they come to find out that it was just the Red Death in general and it wasn’t a person at all.

Symbolism

1. Clock = Death

(Lives are drifting away with time)

2. The Red Death = Death

(It can't be escaped)

3. Castellated Abbey = Confinement

(Hidden away where no one can find it)

4. 7 colored rooms = Different stages of human life