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The Masque of the Red Death

by Edgar Allan Poe

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Symbolism of the Clock and Colored Rooms in "The Masque of the Red Death"

Summary:

In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death," the seven colored rooms symbolize various stages of life or aspects of human experience. The rooms, arranged from east to west, align with the progression from birth to death. The colors—blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and black—represent stages from tranquility and growth to decline and death. The final black room with scarlet windows signifies death, with the ebony clock symbolizing the inevitability of mortality. Interpretations also link the rooms to the seven deadly sins or stages of madness.

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What does each color and room symbolize in "The Masque of the Red Death"?

I researched this question online and came up with a couple of answers that I feel could be relevant to your question. The seven rooms might signify the 7 stages that a person goes through in their life: birth, toddler, childhood, teen years, middle years, senior years and death.

In the story the placement of the rooms is also significant to this theory.  The rooms go from east to west which represents the way the sun rises, or is "born" each day and then sets or "dies" each day.

It has also been said that the seven rooms represent the seven deadly sins: sloth, lust, gluttony, avarice, pride, anger and covetousness.  The Prince definitely displays all of these sins throughout the course of the evening.

The colors also signify the following  Blue – Birth, Purple - Royalty, Power, Green - Growth and Life, Orange - Destruction or Fire, White – Purity, Violet - Knowledge and Memory, and Black - Death.

Another explanation I ran across to explain the colors are:, Blue means heaven and truth, Purple means sorrow and suffering, Green means nature and hope for eternal life, Orange means strength and endurance, White means light, Violet means dark blood and Black means death or grief.

These are a few of the explanations I ran across in my research.  I hope they help.  As you can see there are many interpretations.

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What does each color and room symbolize in "The Masque of the Red Death"?

The rooms are blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and black, with scarlet panes. The colors are wildly dreamlike and surreal, like entering a state of progressive madness, each color increasingly bizarre. The predominant color, despite all the others competing for attention, however, is red. Red symbolizes blood, and the horrors that are to follow.

The details are in the fourth paragraph, excerpted here:

"That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue --and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange --the fifth with white --the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet --a deep blood color."

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What does each color and room symbolize in "The Masque of the Red Death"?

The narrator says that the rooms run from east to west, starting with the first room in a vivid blue.  The second room is purple, and the third is green.  The fourth room is orange, the fifth white, and the sixth violet.  The seventh and final room is the only one in which the window panes do not match the tapestries hung on the walls; the room is draped in black, but the windows are blood red.  The rooms run east to west, which is the same direction in which the sun travels, and often the day is considered symbolic of the human lifespan: sunset is representative of birth, the sun is at its height when we are in the prime of our lives, and sunset is representative of death.  It seems, then, that we could read the progression of rooms as the progression through a life, ending in the black and red room of death (with the ebony clock which symbolizes mortality as well).  Given the fact that the people are locked in the abbey, attempting to avoid death, this symbolism seems applicable here.

Further, some scholars believe that the seven rooms parallel the seven ages of man described by Jacques in Shakespeare's As You Like It:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then, the whining school-boy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then, a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the 'pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then, the justice,
In fair round belly, with a good capon lined,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Jaques says that men play seven parts during their lives: first the infant, then the school-boy, the lover, the soldier, the judge, then a skinny old man in slippers with droopy tights and glasses, and finally an old man, near death, who becomes like a child again.  Each room corresponds, then, to a different stage of life, again moving from birth to death.

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What does each color and room symbolize in "The Masque of the Red Death"?

The rooms can have several different meanings, with most being the archetypal symbols of the colors. For example, the blue room can represent tranquility and peace, while the green room can represent envy or life. The way the rooms are arranged is the important point, with the start of the chambers begin in the east, & the end being in the west. This represents the flow of life, & the movement from birth to death. Thus, each room can symbolize a stage of life, or a particular emotion felt at each point.

The one room with definite meaning is the final one. This room, with its scarlet panes seeming to bleed over the ebony tapestries, is clearly the room of death. The clock within represents the ticking of the final moments of life, and the revelers are uncomfortable in the black room, preferring the more "lively" colors. The fact that all the partygoers, and Prince Prospero himself eventually die within that room is not coincidence. It's a not-so-subtle reminder that no one can cheat or escape Death.

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What does each color and room symbolize in "The Masque of the Red Death"?

There are many speculations as to why the rooms are described in the colors and order that they are. My point of view is that they represent the stages of life. Blue (first) is the color of the unknown and represents birth - the very beginning. Next is Purple - the color of vivacity and life - this is the start of life and knowledge. Green comes third and represents the spring of life - growth. Orange, fourth in line, is the summer and autumn of life - the climax or height of life. Thus begins the decline. White is the winter of life and represents age as we think of white hair and bones. Violet is a shadowy color signifying the end as purple (life) is draped in grey shadows. Black, obviously, would then mean death - but the red window, the only window not in keeping with the monochromatic theme - implies death by the feared Red Death.

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What does each color and room symbolize in "The Masque of the Red Death"?

The big, ebony and draped Clock that lays "in the last room" represents our battle against time which leads inevitably to death. This was one of Poe's obsessions.

The colors have various meanings according to separate research but they are, thus far

Purple: Royalty, riches

Orange is the flame of the fires of hell or passion of life

Green is substenance on earth, life, reproduction, the cycle of life

Blue is the ascend, the beginning

White is innocence, peace, purity

Violet is know to be attributed to philosophy

Black is death. The end. Despair, obscurity

Remember that the black room also had scarlett panes, so the red of the characteristics of the illness lead to death (both go together).

Check enotes as well for other possible answers given before.

I've seen this question asked somewhat similarly in other ocasions, so it may have been answered.

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What do the seven doors symbolize in "The Masque of the Red Death"?

Edgar Allen Poe was a master at hidden meanings in his works. There have been many discussions and theories of what the colors of the 7 rooms mean. Most of the conclusions all seem to mean the same thing. Prospero wants to keep himself and his friends safe from the red death. He holds a masquerade ball at his castle and welds the doors shut, thinking the red death can't get in. There are 7 rooms and each have a different color.

Most of the theories of these colors are as follows.

Blue represents the color of birth.

Purple suggests the beginnings of growth.

Green represents the color of the spring of someone's life "youth". 

Orange is the color of the summer and autumn of one's life.

White represents the color of age.

Violet is a shadowy color that could represent darkness and death.

Black is obviously death.

The colors represent the stages of human life. The rooms are also arranged from east to west. East is usually the direction associated with beginnings and the west is ending and death. In the story none of the guests ever go into the black room, suggesting that they are afraid of death. When the red death appears, it walks the course of each room. It starts with birth and ends with death. All of the guests, who are so afraid of death, rush to follow it. They themselves end up walking the whole course of rooms, as well. They all start at birth and end up in the black room. In the end, as they all enter the black room, they all die.

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What does the purple room symbolize and represent in "The Masque of the Red Death"?

The purple room in Poe's The Masque of the Red Death represents the second Deadly Sin, which is Greed. Greed, or avarice, is insatiable, excessive desire for wealth and all material goods.

All seven Deadly Sins are, from first to seventh, Pride, Greed, Envy, Wrath (severe anger), Lust, Gluttony, Sloth. Each has a room assigned and each is present in The Masque of the Red Death. The Seven Deadly Sins are of such a monstrous nature because of the other sins that they lead to.

Poe describes the setting as a "voluptuous scene" with seven rooms, "an imperial suite." This indicates that the rooms must be considered together, thus establishing that if the first room represents the first deadly sin Pride, then the second room represents the second deadly sin Greed, and so on. This idea is given support by the fact that the masked ball was held at the end of the sixth month leading into the seventh month.

Since Greed is the sin of having an insatiable appetite for wealth and all luxuries and goods, it leads to other sins against other people, for instance, people who are left without food or shelter. In The Masque of the Red Death, the second room represents the Prince's magnificent preparations for his self-imposed imprisonment with his courtiers.

His country is "half depopulated" yet he is shut up within the abbey's walls with all manner of riches, beauty, wealth, food and wine. The Greed betokened by this insatiable accumulation of food, wine and luxuries leads to the greater sin of his kingdom's people being left to suffer and struggle alone and without necessities.

Additionally, the purple, or second, room represents the stage of life during which humanity is productive and able to acquire the means of sustaining life. This contrasts greatly with the deprivation of others' lives caused by Greed.

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In "The Masque of the Red Death," what do the seven rooms in the abbey symbolize?

The rooms in Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" symbolize the progress of life from birth to death. The first evidence of this lies in the alignment of the rooms themselves. Poe explicitly states that they move from east to west, referencing the movement of the sun from dawn to dusk. This serves as an extended metaphor for human life. The first room, blue, lies at the abbey's easternmost wall. We can take it to symbolize birth, the start of life, the dawn. Meanwhile, the final room, at the west, is black. It symbolizes death, the end of life, the dusk. The other rooms represent bright, happy colors up until the next to last room, violet. This color seems to hint at the setting of the sun.

It also worth noting that a clock rests at the western wall. Everyone in the abbey already fears this room, and when the clock chimes the hour, "there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company." The clock represents the inevitability of death, the very thing Prospero and his retinue are trying to avoid. Further, the windows in this final room are "blood-tinted panes," and the light gives everyone who enters the chamber the impression of having a blood-streaked face. The title of this story alone reveals how closely Poe associates the color red with death.

Finally, when the Red Death does come, it begins in the blue room, and Prospero and the others pursue it through all the chambers until they reach the black one. Even in life, even in birth, the specter of death is present. The rooms in the abbey represent the passage of life, from birth to death, and the inescapable fear of that eventuality that no living being can escape. 

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In "The Masque of the Red Death," what does the seventh chamber symbolize?

It is key to realise that each of the seven chambers and the way that they are positioned running from east to west, to correspond with the rising and setting of the sun, allegorically suggests the different stages of man's life as he is born and starts his inexorable trek towards death. Let us consider how the final seventh chamber is described so we can establish its allegorical significance:

The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the colour of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet--a deep blood colour.

Also important to consider when trying to work out the allegorical significance of this room is what happens here. Let us remember that the guest disguised as the Red Death walks through all of teh chambers before finally confronting the enraged Prince Prospero in this seventh chamber, where the arrival of the Red Death is discovered and greeted with intense dismay. The combination of the black of the trappings of this room and the red of the windows strongly points us towards this seventh room allegorically representing death, and death at the hands of the Red Death.

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What does the clock symbolize in "The Masque of the Red Death"?

The clock in Poe's story is a symbol of death, reminding the party goers that their time is short.

The people in the castle are there trying to escape the "red death," a disease which sounds ominously like the Black Death or bubonic plague that wiped out a good portion of Europe's population in the 1300s and beyond.

The guests are partying, trying to enjoy life and forget the troubles surrounding them, when the clock chimes the hour with "brazen lungs." The sound is so loud and peculiar that it stops the orchestra from playing. People stop dancing and grow nervous and pale at this reminder of the passage of time and their own mortality. People pass their hands over their brows—everyone is briefly disconcerted until the chiming ends. Then the party resumes.

Poe devotes a whole paragraph to the chiming of the clock to demonstrate that even in this supposed sanctuary, the privileged few cannot escape the specter of death.

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What does the clock symbolize in "The Masque of the Red Death"?

In "The Masque of the Red Death," the clock is extremely important as a symbol.  The timepiece represents time itself as it relates to the members of the group locked away in apparent safety.  The members of the group dance and party while those outside the gates of the castle are dying of the "red death."  Those within the castle walls do not realize that their time is nearly over, as well, which is what the clock symbolizes.  When the clock stops, it means that their time is over, as well.

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What is an example of symbolism in "The Masque of the Red Death?"

A good example of symbolism in "The Masque of the Red Death" is the imperial suite in which Prince Prospero and his guest hold their party. Instead of being a long corridor of rooms, connected by doors so that the entire length can be made visible, the suite is formed of rooms that connect around sharp corners, and each room is styled with a different color:

To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened.
(Poe, "The Masque of the Red Death," xroads.viginia.edu)

Because of the prevailing theme of impending and inevitable death, the rooms symbolize various stages of the human life. Each room is colored differently, because each part of a human life is different; the rooms cannot be seen from one another, because the future is hidden and the past cannot be changed. As the Masque itself passes through each of the rooms, it is unhindered; the last room, where the Masque is revealed, is black with red glass, the colors of death and the plague itself. As each guest dies in their respective room, the random and senseless nature of death is seen; people often die in childhood, or in accidents, and so the rooms represent both the length and finite nature of life, and the pain of dying before one's time.

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In Poe's "Masque of the Red Death", what do the seven colors represent, and how are the rooms arranged?

In one sense, the only room color relevant to the plot of the story is the black room with the red window.  In most Western cultures, black, partly because it represents night when humans are most vulnerable, is the color of death and dying, sadness, evil, fear, unhappiness, and anger.  If someone says, for example, "I'm in a really black mood," you do not want to be near that person.  In the context of "The Masque of the Red Death," the fact that the window is red is especially ominous because red often symbolizes blood, so the combination of a black room with a window that transforms all light into a red glow carries nothing but negative connotations.

For the other rooms, the colors are less meaningful to the story but add to the overall Gothic effect: blue is often associated with life because it is the color of water; purple, royalty and wisdom; green, nature, youth, but also jealousy ("the green-eyed monster"); orange, energy and enthusiasm;white, purity, spirituality; violet, beauty and passion.

Poe tells us that the layout of the main hall is very different from a typical castle's large, open hall.  Instead, the Duke, to suit his "bizarre" tastes, has divided the area into smaller rooms with a

sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite.

We don't know exactly whether these rooms create an overall pattern, but what is important is that they seem to be designed to keep people in rather than out, as in "trapped," and the rooms add to the overall Gotic effect of the castle's interior, particularly because they are not well lit, and the colored windows enhance the surrealistic atmosphere.

An important element in the plot is that the Red Death makes its way through all the rooms, thereby infecting all the revelers in each room, and ends his walk in the black room with the red window, the Red Death's symbolic home because the room itself mirrors the effects of the disease.  In fact there is no other room in which he could have logically ended his visit to the Prince's castle.

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What is the symbolism of the rooms in "The Masque of the Red Death"?

In Poe's classic short story "The Masque of the Red Death," Prince Prospero invites a thousand of his aristocratic friends to seclude themselves inside his castellated abbey while a deadly pestilence known as the Red Death wreaks havoc on the surrounding countryside. During the fifth or sixth month of their seclusion, Prince Prospero holds a bizarre masquerade in his seven-room imperial suite to entertain his guests. Each of the seven rooms of Prince Prospero's imperial suite is decorated in a different color, and the rooms span from the eastern side of the abbey to the western side. The color and location of the rooms are symbolically significant and represent the seven different stages of human life.

The most eastern room is colored blue, representing birth and the beginning of life. The next room is purple, which symbolizes growth and maturation. The third chamber is green, representing youth and adolescence while the fourth chamber is colored orange, which symbolizes the summer or autumn of life. The fifth chamber is white, representing old age and the sixth chamber is violet, which symbolizes illness and disease. The seventh and most western chamber is shrouded in black with scarlet window panes, resembling a deep blood color. The seventh chamber symbolically represents death, and the ebony clock inside the room serves as a reminder of the transience of life.

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What event occurred in each colored room in "The Masque of the Red Death"?

In Poe's classic short story "The Masque of the Red Death," Prince Prospero holds an elaborate, eccentric masquerade in his imperial suite and instructs his guests to dress in bizarre costumes. There are seven rooms in Prospero's imperial suite and each room is decorated a different color.

The seven rooms and their colors allegorically represent the seven stages of life. The easternmost room is blue and represents birth while the second room is purple, symbolizing growth. The third room is green, representing youth, while the fourth room is orange, symbolizing the autumn of life. The fifth room is colored white, representing old age, and the sixth room is violet, which represents diminishing health.

The seventh and final chamber of the imperial suite is black with scarlet panes that resemble blood. The final chamber is also located at the western side of the suite and symbolically represents death. It is in this chamber where the large ebony clock stands, reminding the guests of their mortality as each hour passes.

Among each of the chambers, the masqueraders dance, indulge in alcohol, and enjoy the bizarre, grotesque nature of the party. Poe refers to the revelers as "dreams," and they proceed to move through each room as they enjoy the eccentric, exciting atmosphere. The only chamber the masqueraders purposely avoid is the ominous seventh room. Toward the end of the story, the personification of the Red Death enters the masquerade, killing Prince Prospero and all his guests in the seventh chamber.

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In "The Masque of the Red Death", what do the clock and seven rooms signify?

Many scholars believe that the seven rooms in Prince Prospero's castle refer to a speech made by a character named Jacques, from Shakespeare's As You Like It.  In this speech, Jacques addresses what he calls the "seven ages" of a person's life, the seven parts or roles that he plays:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.  (2.7.139-143)

The interpretation of the rooms as symbolic of a person's path from infancy to death, ending with a black clock -- both the color and the object often associated with mortality and death's inevitability as our time ticks away -- is reinforced by the way the rooms are situated, from east to west.  The sun rises in the east, the birth of day (often symbolic of birth in general), and sets in the west, the death of day (often symbolic of death in general).

In this scheme, the blue room represents the unknown from which we come, as infants.  Purple, then, the second room, combines blue (unknown) and red (which symbolizes life and intensity), signifying the beginning of our growth.  The green room, third, represents youth and vitality, as green so often does.  Orange, the fourth room, represents the summer and fall of life (our prime and early decline.  White, then, the fifth room, is old age (as our hair grows white with age).  Violet, in the sixth room, combines blue and purple, suggesting shadow and decline, even a return to the unknown from which we came.  Finally, the seventh room of black and red symbolizes death, and this is why the revelers stay out of that room and dread the chimes of the clock, especially at midnight (the death of day); they fear death.  

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How is the setting used symbolically in "The Masque of the Red Death"?

Your original question had to be edited down so that it only asked one question, according to enotes regulations. I have chosen therefore to focus on the way the setting operates symbolically in this story. It is clear that this is a richly symbolic tale, and therefore the meaning is closely linked to Poe's use of symbolism.

Let us remember that there are seven rooms, each of a different colour. Seven is a key number that suggests the cycle of life and time passing. For example, we have seven days in a week, and then we have the seven stages of man. Let us also remember that the colour of the seventh room, black, is richly symbolic of death, and likewise we need to recall that it is in this seventh room that the clock (which again symbolises time passing) is housed. Of course, Prospero and his guests have locked themselves away in an attempt to stop the inevitable - to halt the ravages of time of live for eternity. The intruder, who could be said to symbolise death, shows that this is impossible. It is strongly symbolic that as Prospero follows the intruder through the other rooms to the seventh, he is, unknowingly, walking to his death, as he meets the intruder at the final stage of life and dies there.

In this tale, therefore, Poe uses the setting symbolically to convey his message of the impossibility of outwitting or running away from death - we are all subject to the passing of time and our own mortality, something that Prospero and his fellow revellers tried to ignore up until the last minute.

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