Role of Nature in Edgar Allen Poe The Masque of the Red Death

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Role of Nature in Edgar Allen Poe The Masque of the Red Death
Death is an unavoidable and inescapable thing, and it is the nature of humans to both fear and avoid death. Nonetheless, efforts to avoid and flee death always prove to be futile given that death will ultimately catch up with everyone.In this short story, nature – human nature to be precise – plays an important role as evidenced in how the characters fear death and try to shun or flee. The human nature to fear and avoid death is illustrated in the short story although the effort of death avoidance ends in futility.
In The Masque of the Red Death, a terrifying, lethal disease known as the Red Death devastates the dominion of Prince Prospero. This ailment is so deadly such that it kills in just a half-hour following the start of the symptoms which basically include bleeding from the pores, dizziness, sharp pain, as well as red stains on the victims’ faces and bodies.The nature of humans to fear and avoid or flee death is evident from the fact that people immediately shun a person who has been infected with the disease. When people see the symptoms of this deadly illness on an infected individual, they become fearful and the victim is completely avoided since those uninfected do not want to be infected and consequently suffer death.
The nature of humans to fear and avoid death is also illustrated on how Prince Prospero strives to ensure that he does not get infected by this terrible illness which is widespread in his nation. He invites a thousand of his honorable friends who are healthy in order to join him in his abbey to hide from Red Death, the terrible ailment. The prince is happy and safe inside a monastery to which he has withdrawn with several ladies and knights chosen from the court. In the abbey, Prince Prospero locks himself and his noble friends away from the outside world. The abbey is stocked with adequate foodstuff to survive leaving the adjacent country to its fate as he holds wild parties inside the abbey.After roughly 6 months, whilst Red Death was taking its toll on the population outside the abbey, Prince Prospero held a masked ball within a set of 7 rooms particularly adorned to a theme color; the color of each room matches that of the window. There was a blue room, an orange room, a green room, a violet room, a white room and a purple room.The 7th room contained tapestries of black velvet. Nonetheless, room seven was somehow distinct since even though the dominant color is black, the color of the windows is blood red.
In the middle of the night, a figure that is masked appears and its costume stirs up emotions amongst the revelers in the party ranging from terror to displeasure and surprise. The masquerader is thin, tall and outfitted as a dead body inside a grave. The mask of the masquerader is as fearsome and hard as the face of a dead person. It is of note that red spots on his costume clearly show that this figure has come in the appearance of the deadly Red Death.Upon seeing this figure, every reveler in the party expresses surprise. They utter undertones and murmurs, and eventually they all recoil and retreat in revulsion and terror. This illustrates how these peopl...