In the story “The Masque of the Red Death”, by Edgar Allan Poe, a prince builds seven different rooms in a castle in an attempt to escape the Red Death. The room’s colors are blue, purple, violet, green, white, yellow, orange and black. The Red death is a plague that is like the black plague. The rooms are all different colors and six of them always have a party going on. The black room is a room most people avoid because it is scary and reminds people of the Black Death. The colors all have something to do with a stage in life. The color purple the second room has to do with Youth or the second stage of life. Purple is a symbol for the second stage in life which is youth, ages 12-20, which also represents playfulness.
All the colors in the story symbolize the seven stages of a man’s life. They go from blue( birth) to black( death). They also form one of the most important themes to this story that you can not escape death. The color purple is the second stage in a man’s life. The stage before it, blue, means birth or beginning. Purple means youth or an age of being young. It can represent someone having energy and being playful. The color purple relates to the ebony clock because the clock of ebony is like life ticking by. As it goes on it represents your life going by. The color purple represents part of that life that is going by so it symbolizes that.
The color purple relates to my life because I could be considered in the age of youth as I am only thirteen. Also it related to my life as I have already lived through most of it. Finally the color purple relates to me as I am youthful and energetic. The color purple is important in the story “The Masque of the Red Death” because it is one of the seven colors which are one of the major themes behind the story. The whole color theme itself is very important and there would not be much of a deep story without it. Although the color black is probably the most significant in the story since it represents death, purple is still pretty important as it represent your early stage in life. Also purple is almost the opposite black which makes it very related to it.
The colors in “The Masque of the Red Death” are a big part of the story. They work together to create a theme that most people will not catch but can be a theme if you think about it. Although I there isn’t much explaining to do on the symbolism of the colors they are very important nonetheless and should be talked about and though out as it does relate to everybody’s life.
