The darkness that surrounds the world The world is shrouded in a thick black veil that hangs anonymously above, blanketing the world in darkness. In Edgar Allan Poe's short story, The Masque of the Red Death, published in 1842, Poe writes another gripping Gothic horror story that depicts this ever-looming darkness. In this tale, Prince Prospero and thousands of his friends lock themselves away in Prospero's castle to escape a deadly plague. There's an extravagant party to forget the illness, and as guests flit around the ballroom, an unexpected visitor appears. This visitor embodies the illness from which Prospero seeks to escape. Through symbolism, Poe helps create a macabre atmosphere filled with darkness and the stench of ever-close death. Symbols include; the rooms, the clock and the uninvited guest. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The world in the Masque of the Red Death is infested with a disease that threatens those who encounter it, and Poe's metaphors reflect this mood. Prince Prospero locks himself away to avoid such a tragic death. It gives a grand spectacle in an even grander castle. Inside is a winding labyrinth with seven rooms of seven different colors. The first room is decorated entirely in blue. As partygoers wander from room to room, the colors and decorations of each room also change. In the last room, an exception to everything else is a black room where no light enters. Only in “this room did the color of the windows not match the decorations. The glass here was scarlet, an intense blood color” (2). The rooms begin with blue decorations, the color of birth, and end in black and blood red, the universal symbol of death. The rooms represent the path from birth to death. No light comes in through any of the windows, because you can't see what's going to happen in life. Walk through life in darkness until you reach the end. On the wing opposite the winding halls that go from life to death, lies a pendulum; an oscillating clock that counts the days of life. The very symbol of death can be found in a ticking clock, counting the days, minutes, seconds until life. In Prospero's castle there is a huge clock that swings a huge pendulum. Every hour guests interrupt the celebration to listen to the chiming of this clock. When the sounds fall silent, people continue their crazy escapade. When the chime of midnight goes silent, "individuals in the crowd who had had time to become aware of the presence of a masked figure who had not previously attracted the attention of any single individual" (3). The midnight hour marks the end of a day. It is the symbolic witching hour when hideous creatures crawl out of their hidden crevices. Eventually, people see the mysterious man present uninvited to their celebrations. Time stands still and the cloth over their eyes reveals the death that waits patiently, waiting for time to lift no more and drag you down into its domain. Death is an inevitable force that looms over everything in many different forms and everywhere. all the years of existence. Prospero attempts to protect himself from the death and horror that live outside his pristine castle. Death snaps his bony fingers and climbs into the world of the living to take the lives of Prospero and his friends. For these people, death took the form of a person infected with the disease they feared most; the Red Death. When he makes his appearance in the ballroom, "his robe was soaked in blood and his broad forehead,.