The Rooms from Life to Death

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

consist 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

chamber 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