In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “Masque of the Red Death,” he shows mastery in creating suspense through use of imagery, symbolism, and fluctuating mood shifts.
Part of how Poe creates such excellent suspense is in his wonderful use of imagery and how it helps him craft fantastic settings and scenarios. As Poe’s protagonist, Prince Prospero, gathers friends into his soon to be ‘castellated’ abbey, courtiers are called to soundly weld shut any entrances from without or within to protect the surviving countrymen from the fatal pandemic known as the ‘Red Death.’ “A strong and lofty wall girdled … they resolved to leave means neither of ingress or egress” (p.1, 18-20). As Poe describes the walls of his abbey, a looming suspense starts to build inside the reader as we realize that everyone in this grand structure is trapped for the ride to come. Following this piece of rising action, the reader is given a guided sensory tour of Prospero’s rather garish abbey. Through a masterful use of imagery, it becomes apparent that the sequenced rooms are similar in pattern until the western most room or seventh chamber becomes unveiled. “But in the western or black chamber the effect of the firelight was ghastly in the extreme … that there were few … bold enough to set foot within its precincts” (p.2,48-50). The imagery Poe builds here is that of the velvet room, and how because of its embellishments, people were afraid to even near it, further building the suspense of the unknown.
Imagery – ‘blood profusely bleeding from the pores’
Makes the reader feel the fear of the painful horror of the disease and see the fountains of red liquid gushing from the bodies and pooling deep crimson stains around its victims.
As the exposition endears the reader to the Jacob’s protagonist, the close-knit White family, the rising action begins to unfold. Jacob’s symbolism is first introduced as Sgt. Major Morris arrives at the family villa from a trip to India with a cursed artifact that will challenge the family with a major conflict.