The Masque of the Red Death

The Masque of the Red Death

Story and Symbolism

Multiple Choice

Did you read the story?

• Yes, teacher!

• No, I'm sorry.

Poll

Did you like the story?

• Yes! :)

• Not so much. :(

• I didn't read :/

Multiple Choice

Who wrote The Masque of the Red Death?

• Nathaniel Hawthorne

• William Shakespeare

• Mark Twain

• Edgar Allan Poe

Multiple Choice

What is the Red Death?

• A wave of Communism

• A professional lacrosse team

• A ferocious army

• A terminal disease

Prince Prospero

"Prince Prospero was happy and brave and wise. Half the population of his country had died, but he had a plan. He called a thousand friends who were healthy, fun-loving knights and other rich friends to one of his palaces and there they stayed, safe and secure. The Red Death was outside, but they were inside."

Multiple Choice

"The "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous." Define "pestilence."

• bugs 
• contagious disease
• famine
• war

Multiple Choice

At the beginning of the story, what was happening to the common people of the country?

• They are upset because of money

• They were having a masquerade ball

• They were very tired

• They were being devastated by a pestilence

Multiple Choice

Why do Prince Prospero and his guests lock themselves in an abbey?

• to pray in seclusion

• to celebrate his birthday

• to escape an invading army

• to escape the Red Death

Multiple Choice

Why does Prince Prospero keep everyone locked up?

• To sequester against the native invasion

• To quarantine against disease

• To fortify against the Anglo-Saxons

• To detain political defectors

"At the end of the fifth or sixth month in the abbey, the Red Death in the outside world was at its worst. Prince Prospero decided that it was time to hold a magnificent masquerade ball to entertain his guests."

Multiple Select

What is the meaning of "masque" in the story? (choose more than one)

• Masque is short for "masquerade" a type of party in which people wear costumes

• It is a French courtroom where they ask many questions

• It means "mask"

• It means "master" that is the title everyone had to call Prince Prospero

"The prince had decided to hold it in the Imperial Suite; this suite had seven of the most impressive rooms in the abbey. The prince loved things to be unusual, even bizarre, and this was his favorite suite. It was impossible to see more than one room at a time, because of the design of the suite."

Multiple Choice

How many rooms were there altogether?

• Seven

• Eleven

• Nine

• Ten

Multiple Choice

What colours were each room?

• blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet and black.

• yellow, grey, pink, red, brown, beige and green

• pink, purple, blue, orange, black, white and grey

Symbolism

Symbolism is the use of symbols to stand in for ideas or concepts.

The story makes use of symbols to represent the time and the stages of life until death.

^{Symbol: Stages of Life}

• First Room: Blue = birth

• Second Room: Purple = childhood

• Third Room: Green = adolescence

• Fourth Room: Orange = adulthood/maturity

• Fifth Room: White = old age

• Sixth Room: Violet = near death

• Last Room: Black & Red = death and blood

Fill in the Blanks

The symbolism of the colours of the rooms represent...

The Clock

"In this last room, there was a gigantic ebony clock with a heavy pendulum. The pendulum swung and the clock struck every hour with a dull, heavy sound: it was so loud that the musicians had to stop playing and wait for it to finish."

Multiple Choice

What is the symbolism of the clock?

• the time itself

• the passing of the time

• our time on earth, and each chime gets us closer to death

• the beating of a heart

Multiple Choice

Who arrives at the party when the clock strikes midnight?

• A masked intruder

• A vigilante assassin

• A mysterious woman

• A magnificent queen

Multiple Choice

Who was the masked intruder?

• The Black Panther

• The Red Death

• The Green Arrow

• The Scarlet Spider

Fill in the Blanks

What does The Red Death do to Prince Prospero?

Multiple Choice

After he kills Prince Prospero, what does he do?

• He leaves the party.

• He kills everybody else.

• He burns the abbey down.

• He makes a loud monstrous laugh.

Allegory

As a literary device, an allegory is a narrative in which a character, place, or event is used to deliver a broader message about real-world issues and occurrences.

It can be a story, a poem, or a picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.

Fill in the Blanks

Some people believe that Poe wrote this story to talk about a pandemic happening at the time.

If this story was written nowadays, it would be an allegory of what disease?