In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Masque of the Red Death”, Poe use many symbols to interpret the many different theme’s. One of the themes is that you cannot escape death which Poe proves in this story to be true. Each of the rooms that Poe uses in the story represents a certain kind of mood, emotion or coincidences in life. Poe’s story takes place in seven connected but carefully separated rooms. This reminds the reader of the past significance of the number seven. The history of the world was thought to onsist of seven ages, just as an individual’s life had seven stages. The ancient world had seven wonders; universities divided learning into seven subjects; there were seven deadly sins with seven corresponding cardinal virtues.
Therefore, an allegorical reading of this story suggests that the seven rooms represent the seven stages of one’s life, from birth to death, through which the prince pursues a figure masked as a victim of the Red Death, only to die himself in the final hamber of eternal night. The easternmost room is decorated in blue, with blue stained-glass windows. The next room is purple with the same stained-glass window pattern. The rooms continue westward, according to this design, in the following color arrangement: green, orange, white, and violet. The seventh room is black, with red windows. The rooms of the palace, lined up in a series that represents the stages of life. Poe makes it a point to arrange the rooms running from east to west.
This progression is symbolically significant because it represents the life cycle of a day. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, with night symbolizing death. What transforms this set of symbols into an allegory, is the further symbolic treatment of the twenty-four hour life cycle. This translates to the realm of human beings. This progression from east to west, performed by both Prospero and the mysterious guest, symbolizes the human journey from birth to death.
Poe crafts the last black room as the ominous endpoint, the room the guests fear just as they fear death. Poe symbolically uses the seven rooms to interpret the theme of the story. This story reminds us that death comes “like a thief in the night,” and even those who seek “peace and safety… shall not escape. The other guests, are so afraid of this masked man that they fail to prevent him from walking through each room. Prospero finally catches up to the new guest in the black-and-red room. As soon as he confronts the figure, Prospero dies.
