Who is the uninvited guest in "The Masque of the Red Death"?

The "midnight guest" is, of course, the personification of the Red Death coming to claim the revelers at the party. This figure arrives at the stroke of midnight, & causes much disturbance among the other guests.

And thus, too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before.

This figure is beyond grotesque. Although Prince Prospero has seemingly endless tolerance for phantasms & nightmares, this one particular costume captures attention for having "gone beyond the bounds of even the prince's indefinite decorum." This party-crasher strikes fear into the hearts of the guests, & they slowly come to realize that this is no ordinary party-goer. He seems to be wearing the clothes of a corpse, & his face shows the symptoms of the Red Death.

The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood—and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

This is the one costume that is not allowed: the one aspect of life the Prince tried at all costs to avoid. Yet it's not a costume, & by the time those in attendance at the party eventually realize this, they have already succumbed to its contagion.

Why does the presence of the masked figure cause a sensation in "The Masque of the Red Death"?

Prince Prospero is described as being a peculiar aristocrat, who is fascinated by the bizarre and is full of "barbaric lustre," which is depicted by the design of his abnormal masquerade. Prince Prospero requires his noble guests to dress in fantastic, grotesque attire, which corresponds to the wanton atmosphere inside the magnificent abbey. When the clock strikes midnight, the guests are astonished and disturbed when an enigmatic, horrifying masked guest arrives. Poe writes that although Prince Prospero had no definite boundaries regarding his guests' attire, the anonymous masked guest went beyond the prince's "indefinite decorum" and "out-Heroded Herod." Essentially, the anonymous guest's attire was so utterly grotesque and disturbing that everyone was horrified by its appearance. Poe also writes,

The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. (10)

Poe is saying that the entire party felt that the stranger's costume was so inappropriate that the anonymous guest surely lacked charm or any semblance of morality by wearing such a despicable, offensive costume. The tall, gaunt figure with the visage of a bloody corpse happens to the be the personification of the Red Death, which eventually kills Prince Prospero and all of his guests.

What happens after the mysterious figure in "The Masque of the Red Death" is unmasked?

When the revelers descend on the Red Death in a rage, following the collapse of Prince Prospero, they snatch at his robes and find that the costume is "untenanted by by any tangible form." In other words, there is no person, no body inside the robes. It is at this moment that the masqueraders realize they are in the presence of the terrible disease that has decimated the kingdom. As soon as they recognize this, the revelers begin to drop, one by one, and each of them lands in the "despairing posture of his fall." The narrator says that the black clock in the hall stops ticking the moment the final reveler dies; this clock has reminded the party-goers of their own mortality over and over again, every time it chimed the hour. Therefore, it makes sense now that it ceases to keep time when the revelers are literally out of time. Finally, the flames in the hall go out.  There is nothing left now besides the Red Death.

What happens after the mysterious figure in "The Masque of the Red Death" is unmasked?

After the death of Prince Prospero in pursuit of the mysterious figure of the unknown guest, the other revellers grab hold of it only to find there is nobody underneath the mask and grave-like shroud. This increases the general sense of horror that its presence has produced, and the revellers all drop dead in turn. The mysterious figure is the plague personified. Prince Prospero has sought to keep it out, but no-one even noticed when it got in. The whole story is full of symbolism. For instance there is the colour symbolism of the seven rooms. The grim seventh room, with its blood-red glare on the windows and velvet blackness obviously stands for death, and the ominously ticking clock symbolises how time eventually runs out for everyone. The story shows how no-one, try as they might, can ultimately escape death.

What happens after the mysterious figure in "The Masque of the Red Death" is unmasked?

“The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe represents his definition of a short story.  Poe believed that everything in the story should be directed to achieve a single effect.  In this story, the effect is horrific death.

The story revolves around a leader of a country trying to escape the fate of his subjects by hiding in a monastery.  The main character Prince Prospero hides for several months and tires of his solitary life.  He decides to have a masquerade ball with the costumes to be grotesque. 

In his writing, Poe details his setting so that his reader can visualize where the story takes place. The setting in this story adds to the horrendous effect that the writer desired. 

The Prince decorates the monastery in a unique way: every room is decorated completely in a different color.  From east to west, the rooms symbolize the passing of a day.  From sunrise to sunset the rooms are these colors: blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and the last black.

The last room was particularly special.  The black room had red windows so that when the lights shone in the room everything and everyone looked like it was covered with blood.  No one stayed long in the room because it made a person feel peculiar.  

The room contained a huge ebony clock that chimed the hours.  When the hour came, everyone stopped what they were doing until the clock had stopped.  Then, they picked up what they were doing. 

When the clock struck twelve, a new presence was observed.  He was described as tall, skeletal, dressed in clothing of the dead. His mask looked like the face of a corpse, and he was sprinkled entirely in blood.

The Prince accosts the specter in the blue room and chases the phantom through all of the chambers until he arrives at the black room.  When he finally faces the ghostly image, the prince pulls his dagger out and approaches it.  

There was a sharp cry—and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which. Instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero… 

When the chiming stopped, the party goers gathered up their courage and ran into the black room and tried to grab the Red Death. They grabbed at him but there was nothing there. The costume fell to the floor. Suddenly, each of the people fell dead from the Red Death.  

The clock died and all of the lights went out. Death would not be denied even for a prince and his friends.

Prince Prospero died trying to conceal himself from the plague that had killed most of his subjects.  He had no business having a party when people were dying in his realm. This was a mockery to the dreadful disease. The eerie figure was Death in disguise as the horrid plague that came to claim all of the people who had been ensconced in the monastery. 

In "The Masque of the Red Death," why does the masked figure cause a sensation?

Prince Prospero and his thousand friends had quarantined themselves against the Red Death inside an abbey.  After six months of being locked up with the Red Death outside, Prospero decides to throw a lavish masque to celebrate their "escape" from death.  He has a tendancy to like lavish, grotesque costumes, but when someone shows up dressed as the Red Death, he becomes enraged.  His anger stems from his (and the others') fear of the Red Death.  If anyone catches this disease, he/she will bleed from all pores and die within thirty minutes.  No one thought it was funny that someone would dare to mock their fear by coming to the party dressed as the Red Death.  What they failed to realize was that no one can escape death; it comes to us all.

Who is the masked visitor in "The Masque of the Red Death"?

As an allegory, Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" can be interpreted as a tale of the folly of humans when faced with their own inevitable deaths.  For, death is the one guest that cannot be banned; no bars will keep him out. 

Poe writes that there is "an assembly of phantasms," so death could easily have slipped into any of the rooms.  In fact, the guests have heard his step before--"with the same solemn and measured step wich had distinguished him from the first" the narrator comments on the appearance of death for Prospero. When a "tall and gaunt figure shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave" materializes, his mask resembles that of a stiffened corpse (a death mask like those made for famous men afterwards); he shudders as in a death throe as the Prince, who stands in the blue chamber (death), demands "hoarsely," "Who dares?....Seize him and unmask him...." as he dies. 

Now, since the narrative continues after the Prince has died, the Red Death must be the narrator, whom the guests realize has been present all along. For, he has not come as a masked visitor; rather, he has been in all the rooms as a "phantasm"; waiting for the Prince, the Red Death sends Prospero's death to him, wearing the shroud and  death mask of the prince who stands in the blue room of death. Thus, the masked visitor is no visitor at all; he is merely the dead Prince Prospero who wears the death masque of the red death on his visage.

What is the role of the masked visitor in "The Masque of the Red Death?"

To understand the function of this uninvited and unwanted guest at the masquerade ball you need to appreciate the way that symbolism operates throughout this entire short story. Poe is a master of symbolism, and it is clear if you study the text carefully, that this masked visitor represents death himself, as suggested through the disease of the Red Death that eventually plagues Prospero's hideout. Consider how the guest is presented:

The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpsoe that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revelers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood--and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with teh scarlet horror.

Not only does this figure resemble the Red Death, he also symbolically turns to confront Propsero in the seventh, black room, which also is the room on the extreme west. The rooms are coloured symbolically, with this room, with its dark colour and the clock, symbolising death and the setting of the sun and the mortality of man. Thus it is entirely fitting that the Mummer reveals himself in this room and the Red Death descends on the guests. Death will not be cheated and cannot be escaped--as Prospero learns the hard way.