Death and chaos rules all, like in the "Masque of the Red Death", no matter how hard one tries, death comes on swift wings. The setting in this story is set in a vey dark and gothic. symbolism plays an important role in the "Masque of the Red Death". There are 3 main examples of this, color, name and numbers.
The colors in the story show what the underlining attitude and feelings and emotion. For example "the western or black chamber" indicates a sense of death when compared to the other six rooms. Poe compares the color of the window pane to the color of blood, which implies that blood may be a factor in the plot of the story. As the prince runs from the "red death", he rushes hurriedly through all of the rooms, they were six different colors . They represent the different stages of the princes emotions, he starts out blue, happiness, then ends black, death. .
The numbers in they story show how the author wants the reader to feel. Seven is a holy number, perhaps this is why the "red death " is a plague of the seventh room. It is also told that the red death appeared at 12 o'clock, the witching hour. This shows that it is a creature of the night. If the symbols in these numbers were not known, then the time and place of the plot would have been meaningless.A persons name can also be symbolism , prince Prospero's name indicates a prince of prosperity. The beginning of the story says that the prince was a " happy and dauntless and sagacious", the sterotypical life of a prince. Even though the prince is killed by the "red death" , Poe uses the symbolism .
of the prince's name to make the reader jump to conclusions about how the story ends. He tricked the readers by making the predictable occur.
This is a gothic story, the setting and mood of the story is dark evil and gruesome. Through out the story you see the gothic aspects of the story arise. The setting is described as dark and despairing.