This document discusses Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Masque of the Red Death" and analyzes some of its symbolic elements. It explains that in the story, Prince Prospero's house has seven rooms decorated in different colors from east to west - blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and black. The document then discusses how different colors can symbolize various ideas and emotions. It suggests the ordering and colors of the rooms may have deeper symbolic meaning. Finally, it notes the story can be read as an allegory with literal plot elements also representing abstract concepts.

1. Masque of the Red Death

2. Task
• Take out your journals.
• You are going to be shown seven slides. You
will be allowed to look at each for fifteen
seconds.
• As you view each slide, write down
– What you see
– What it brings to mind
– How it makes you feel

10. Putting order to the chaos
• In Poe’s Short story “The Masque of the Red
Death,” Prince Prospero has each room in his
house decorated with a different color.
• From East to West, what order were the rooms
in?

11. Order
• 1. Blue
• 2. purple
• 3. green
• 4. orange
• 5. white
• 6. violet.
• 7. black

12. Reflect
• Why might Poe have chosen to put the rooms
in this specific order?
EastWest

13. Symbolism
• Symbols are people, places, events, or things
that stand for ideas larger than themselves.

14. Colors as symbols
• Red is the color of fire and blood, so it is
associated with energy, war, danger, strength,
power, determination as well as passion,
desire, and love.
• Orange is a mixture of red and yellow. It is
associated with joy and sunshine. Orange
represents enthusiasm, fascination, happiness,
creativity, determination, attraction, success,
encouragement, and stimulation.

15. Colors as symbols
• Yellow is the color of sunshine. It often
represents joy, happiness, intellect, and energy.
• Green is the color of nature. It symbolizes
growth, harmony, freshness, and fertility.
Green has strong emotional correspondence
with safety. However, dark green is also
associated with money and greed.

16. Colors as symbols
• Blue is the color of the sky and sea. It is often
associated with tranquility. It symbolizes trust,
loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence,
faith, and truth.
• Purple is a combination of red and blue.
Purple is associated with royalty, so it is often
associated with power, nobility, luxury, and
ambition. Purple is associated with wisdom,
dignity, independence, creativity, mystery, and
magic.

17. Colors as symbols
• White is associated with light, goodness,
innocence, and purity. It is often thought of as
the color of perfection.
• Black often symbolizes power, elegance,
formality, death, evil, and mystery.

18. Allegory
• An allegory is a story that is both literal and
symbolic. The plot is literal, but the events
have an underlying meaning. . The characters
and events represent abstract ideas or states of
being, things like love or freedom, evil or
goodness, hell or heaven.

19. Allegory
• On the surface, an allegory must hold our
attention. The characters must seem believable
so that we will identify with them. But the
symbolic meaning or allegory must be
something that the reader can perceive.

20. The seven rooms
• Blue- East, windows the same color
• Purple- windows the same color
• Green- windows the same color
• Orange- windows the same color
• White- windows the same color
• Violet- windows the same color
• Black- West, blood-red windows

21. Task
• With a partner, use what you have learned
about symbolism and allegory to complete the
chart about the possible meanings of different
elements of the story.
• Think about denotative meanings first, and
then connotative meanings.
• Think about why Prince Prospero acts as he
does.
• Think about why Poe ordered things the way
he did.
• Why seven rooms…?