Edgar Allan Poe: "The Masque of the Red Death" - Discuss

Question 1

discussion

Answer 1

• element 1: settings most often include large, drafty old houses that have “been in the family for years”
• element 3: a ghostly legend, an unexplained occurrence, or a story about a horrible death or murder
• element 4: omens, foreshadowing, and dreams play a role in the mysterious air of the story
• element 7: damsels in distress are frequent
• element 8: words designed to evoke images of gloom and doom
• element 9: the death of a man or woman in the throes of some great passion, the obsessive nature of a man or woman in love, or excessive grief one feels upon the loss of a loved one

Question 2

What elements of Gothic fiction do you find in Paragraph 7 of Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death”?
Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm–much of what has been since seen in “Hernani”. There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust

Answer 2

element 8 – words designed to evoke gloom and doom

Question 3

What elements of Gothic fiction do you find in Paragraph 2 of Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death”?

Answer 3

element 1 – large house (castle)

Question 4

What elements of Gothic fiction do you find in Paragraph 7 of Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death”?
To and fro in the seven chambers were stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these–the dreams–writhed in and about taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps

Answer 4

element 6 – supernatural events: ghosts, unexplained sounds, etc.

Question 5

What elements of Gothic fiction do you find in Paragraph 4 of Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death”?

Answer 5

element 8 – words designed to evoke gloom and doom

Question 6

What elements of Gothic fiction do you find in Paragraph 14 of Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death”?

Answer 6

element 8 – words designed to evoke gloom and doom