"The Masque of Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe

"The Masque of Red Death" 

by Edgar Allan Poe

Read by Michael Mosier

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"The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe is a macabre short story that explores themes of mortality, isolation, and the inescapable nature of death. The tale is set in a fictional country besieged by a deadly plague known as the Red Death, which causes its victims to die quickly and gruesomely, marked by sharp pains, dizziness, and profuse bleeding.

The story follows Prince Prospero, a wealthy and arrogant nobleman who attempts to avoid the plague by secluding himself and a thousand of his healthy and carefree courtiers in an opulent, fortified abbey. Believing that they can escape death, they lavishly entertain themselves in splendid and bizarrely decorated rooms, each of a different color, representing different stages of life.

The abbey's most peculiar feature is the series of seven interconnected rooms, each bathed in a single color of light—blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and black. The last room, the black room, is especially foreboding, with blood-red windows and an ebony clock that ominously chimes every hour, creating a sense of dread among the revelers.

Despite the eerie ambiance of the black room, the courtiers continue their festivities, confident in their security from the Red Death. During a grand masquerade ball, as the clock strikes midnight, a mysterious figure appears, dressed in a costume that resembles a victim of the Red Death, complete with a mask that looks like a corpse.

The presence of this figure horrifies the guests, and Prince Prospero, enraged by what he perceives as an affront to his security and power, demands that the intruder be seized and unmasked. He chases the figure through the seven rooms, eventually confronting him in the black room. As Prospero tries to attack the figure, he falls dead, revealing that the figure is not a costumed guest but the personification of the Red Death itself.

The other revelers, in their horror, try to subdue the intruder but also succumb to the disease. The story concludes with the Red Death claiming all within the abbey, leaving no survivors. The final line underscores the futility of trying to escape death: "And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."

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