Since my latest book The Bone Fire was published, a number of reviewers have commented that there is something of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death” about it. And they’re right in many ways. Both stories are set in the Middle Ages. Both concern a group of nobles who have taken refuge in a high-walled castle to escape the ravages of plague. In my case, the Plague in question is the Black Death of 14th century England. In Poe’s, it is an invented affliction, The Red Death. Both stories start with these nobles planning to wait out this plague in luxury, whilst those beyond the walls are dying. However, this is when our stories diverge—because, after these comparable set-ups, The Bone Fire progresses with a murder-mystery plot, as my detective searches for the killer within the castle. Whereas Poe goes on to give us a mystery on a completely different level. What, on earth, is his story about?
“The Masque of the Red Death” takes its first turn into the bizarre, when Poe’s protagonist, Prince Prospero, decides to throw a masquerade ball for his guests. The ball is to be held in a series of inter-connected rooms that are deliberately arranged so that the next room cannot be fully seen from the current one. Each room is then decorated in a separate bright color, to ensure that this is a “gay and magnificent revel.” All except for the seventh room, which is draped with black velvet tapestries, and illuminated only by an internal window that is the color of blood. Once the firelight shines through this window, it throws a light that is ‘ghastly in the extreme,’ and needless to say, Prospero’s guests much prefer to enjoy the party in the other, brightly-colored rooms.
The next oddity is the gigantic ebony clock that strikes every hour, on the hour, during the masquerade ball—causing the band to cease playing and the guests to cease waltzing. This chiming casts a melancholic, but short-lived shadow over the fun, which ends when the band strikes up again. Soon the revelers are laughing nervously about their folly, promising one another not to be so terrified when the clock strikes again in another hour.
But, of course, they cannot keep this promise—particularly as the clock chimes midnight and a tall and gaunt figure is seen walking through the throng ‘shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave.’ Not only this, he is dabbed in blood, giving the appearance of suffering from the Red Death—the plague which rages beyond the walls causing the sick to die with ‘profuse bleeding at the pores.’
At first, Prince Prospero is affronted, thinking that this costume is some kind of joke in the worst taste. He chases the masked guest into the seventh chamber but dies in an instant when he confronts the stranger. The other guests then rush upon the shrouded figure in outrage, only to find that he disappears at their touch. His clothes are ‘untenanted by any tangible form.’ Within minutes, they are, themselves, struck down by the disease, as they each die in the ‘blood-bedewed halls of their revels.’
I’ve read through this story many times, and I find it to be clearly allegorical. The seven ballrooms are the seven stages of life. The ebony clock is a Memento Mori, reminding us that time is passing. Rather like the revelers stopping at the chiming of this clock, we sometimes pause to dwell on our own mortality, before we quickly return to our ‘waltzing’. But we know the truth—even if we choose to push it to the back of our minds. Eventually we will all be drawn into the seventh room, no matter what refuge we might seek in our own versions of a high-walled castle.
The story can be read in other ways, of course. There is the rather melodramatic, but nevertheless brilliant, 1964 film version with Vincent Price as Prince Prospero. This film takes Poe’s narrative and transforms it into a fight between good and evil. Suddenly it is a morality story, with a Christian theme. Prospero, rather than being the ‘happy and dauntless and sagacious’ prince of Poe’s story, is now a worshipper of Satan. The seventh room in the castle no longer represents just Death, it is now Hell. The stranger who appears at the masquerade ball, is not an inevitable guest at the party of life. He now becomes the judge of souls—allowing those who believe in God to escape the castle and survive the plague.
Whether you see Poe’s story as a reflection on mortality, or rather a tale of morality, it’s also important to remember that Poe himself was famously averse to didacticism in literature—so perhaps we should simply read the story for its own beauty and not try to imbue it with meaning? And “The Masque of the Red Death” is, indeed, a beautiful and classic work. A gothic masterpiece. The guests retire to “the deep seclusion” of a “castellated abbey.” The prince’s designs for the masquerade ball glow “with barbaric lustre”—being “grotesque” as they “glitter” with “piquancy and phantasm.” The story throbs with “something of the terrible” as the atmosphere of dread builds. Until, in true gothic style, we have the tragic ending, where all die in a “despairing posture.”
Whether Prince Prospero and his guests are being punished for their selfishness and hedonism, or whether the Red Death has simply penetrated the castle with the inevitable spread of a viral disease, is unclear from Poe’s narrative—so it’s up to the reader to decide. For me, “The Masque of the Red Death” is ultimately about the futility of trying to out-run death. And this is where I believe that Poe’s story converges again with The Bone Fire. I’ve punished my characters for seeking out a refuge from the plague, by giving them a murderer to contend with inside the sanctuary of their castle. And I believe that Poe punishes his characters as well, by letting them die of the very disease that they had tried so very hard to escape.
So, if you’ve never read “The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe before, then I can thoroughly recommend it. This masterpiece is short. Only a few pages long—so why not see what you make of it yourself?
