"The Masque of the Red Death"
Presentation by Annie Woodson
Story Written by Edgar Allan Poe
Summary of "The Masque of the Red Death"
In the village ran by Prince Prospero, almost all of the people are getting super sick by an awful disease known as "The Red Death", which is killing majority of the kingdom. But Prince Prospero don't care, not one bit. He decides to let the village deal with it on their own while he throws a party for his closest friends. But once you come in, you can't get out because they lock all the doors right after the last guest comes in. The big masquerade ball is held in seven different rooms, all with a different color/theme. The colors consist of blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and black. The black room is decorated all super creepy and there is this big clock in the black room that rings every hour. The people at the ball find it very creepy and laugh awkwardly every time the clock chimes at every new hour, they are even too scared to go into the black room and go near the clock. But then, exactly at midnight, the clock rings loudly and a stranger dressed in all black, looking like a corpse for the masquerade comes through the door, which is crazy because no one can escape or enter. The Prince notices the strange man and demands he leave, the man doesn't move, he just heads straight for the black room. The Prince then charges him, with a knife in hand, to get rid of this stranger. When all of a sudden, the man turns around, making the Prince fall to the ground, dead as a door nail. Then, he looks at the rest of the people at the party, and they do the same, laying with the prince. Everyone thought the man was dressed up as a corpses, but he wasn't dressed up. He truly was dead. The man had suffered from the red death, and made the people at the party suffer too.
Point of View
The story of "The Masque of the Red Death" is written in 3rd person limited because we know a little bit of the background of the story but don't really know any other information, we only know whats going on at the time. If this story was written in a different point of view, we would probably know a lot more of the characters thoughts and feeling as the P.O.V of this story doesn't show you anything other than what is going on at the time.
Characterization
In "The Masque of the Red Death", the main character, Prince Prospero, is a very selfish ruler. He doesn't seem to care that the poor people in his village are dying of an awful disease causing them to bleed to death. Nope, he only cares about himself and just a few of his close friends. Also, I think that the prince is the type of person who runs away from their responsibility's because as you can tell from the story, he hasn't done a thing for his people, just himself. Also, the Prince is really rude because he didn't do anything for his people, making him look like an awful ruler.
The Masque of the Red Death Part 1
The Masque of the Red Death (2007 short film) - Part 1 of 2
The Masque of the Red Death Part 2
The Masque of the Red Death (2007 short film) - Part 2 of 2