Room 1: Blue
Room 2: Purple
Room 3: Green
Room 4: Orange
Room 5: White
Room 6: Violet
Room 7: Black with Scarlet (Deep Blood Red) Panes
GOLDEN Ornaments
EBONY Clock
RED Death
Psychologically, each of these colors signify different emotions. So I'm thinking that since Prince Prospero left the "external world" and secluded himself and his one thousand selected people and that the people are not allowed to grieve or think, the colors signify the other emotions or feelings aside from the constant pleasure they are supposed to feel. Near the end, the Prince is standing in the blue room. Blue can stand for peace, confidence, and strength. The Prince seems to have confidence standing up to the intruder in the corpse mask. Then when this figure moves so quickly through each room, it is as if he is showing that emotions mean nothing to him, he can easily pass them by. Which results in him being in the black room, the symbol of power, evil and death, after killing the Prince. And after that he kills off everyone else which is obviously killing off all their feelings and emotions. The red in "Red Death" plainly attributes to the blood and killings but what else? Maybe anger? If so, anger at what? The fact that the Prince essentially ran away from the country away from the "Red Death"?
These are just some quick thoughts to start off with. I'm not sure where I'm headed yet except trying to figure out why did Poe use so many colors and those specific ones? And what emotion does each one represent, if any? What does everyone else think?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Hey Zaynah,
Nice post, you got me thinking. This is one of those stories that I have always loved. Every time I read it I see another layer, I didn't see earlier.
One of the things I love about Poe's stories is that if you look closely you usually find the meaning of the story in the first paragraph, so :
The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid from the sympathy of his fellow -men (485).
I think I get the whole meaning of the story from this quote. Instead of the black death, Poe uses the red death to mean ( at least I think) that this is a plague is one of the spirit, or more to the point- sexual. When you asked what does the red mean - I first thought of red light districts.
I love that Poe shows that perverseness is in people and one can't run away or hide from it, like the Prince tried to do.
My question is, what do you make of the number symbols in this story.
Audrey
I really enjoy the whole colour scheme. If it weren't for The Phantom of the Opera, I never would have read this Poe tale.
The colours are symbolic of several things, and we could on for a long time to what they could mean to different people, but I like what you wrote, and you make some good insightful points.
I like Zaynah's interpretation of "The Red Death" through a psychological lens. When reading Poe's text, and other nineteenth century writers, I believe that we need to remember that they are living in an prescientific era. Although empirical experimentation had long been put to use, little attention was given to non-physical areas of study: such as psychology. I believe that nineteenth century authors, like Poe, began using psychological elements in their text long before the ever-popular Sigmund Freud.
In Marlon Montgomery's Why Poe Drank Liquor Miss Connor is quoted as to having said, in relation to how novels were concidered in her day, "to be entirely concerned with the social or economic or psychological forces that they will by necessity exhibit" (423). Poe's use of implicit metaphoric relations, the signifier and the signified, clearly illustrates the cultural influence on his literature as well as the importance of his literature to the culture. The colors of the room begin with a benign gentle color and proceed, in direct correlation with, with the progression of the rooms.
I believe that the symbiotic relationship between art and specialized sciences is poignent to the thematic elements that drive Poe's poetry and fiction.
Post a Comment