Homework Help: THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH by Edgar Allan Poe Summary & Analysis

English homework giving you trouble?
In this video I'm talking about "The Masque of the Red Death," a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. We'll go through a detailed summary first, and then a full breakdown and analysis. Thank you to the subscribers who requested this video! If you're looking for more information about Poe's life or some of his others stories or poems, check out my full playlist: • Homework Help: Edgar A...
SUMMARY 0:33
ANALYSIS
Gothic fiction 9:38
What is the Red Death? 10:16
Prince Prospero 12:01
The abbey 14:23
Is Prospero a cult leader? 15:20
Prospero confronts the Red Death 17:43
Costumes 19:30
The seven rooms & their colors 20:32
The clock 23:03
Foreshadowing the ending 24:57
How did the Red Death get inside? 26:27
"Out-Heroded Herod" 28:01
Belshazzar's Feast 29:51
"Like a thief in the night" 33:37
Divine judgement 32:50, 34:08
Fighting for control 34:22
Links to other stories 37:05
Hope that helps! If you have questions or you were interested in a different story or author, let me know in the comments and I'll see what I can do. Good luck!
Poe, Edgar A. "The Masque of the Red Death." The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales, The New American Library, Inc., 1960, pp.147-153.
© 2021 Carrie Hoover

[@catherinecao4810]

It’s amazing how relevant this story is in the modern day

[@tHeForger1145]

That what makes a good writer

[@maxvangeldere320]

Gladly it’s not as deadly 😅

[@jamesb1856]

Not even close. The Red Death flew through the rooms dropping bodies. COVID killed your neighbors ex wife's cousin

[@catherinecao4810]

@@jamesb1856 I was talking about the “willfully ignorant power-trippers having a shin-dig”, but yeah, it’s not exactly a good direct comparison

[@tHeForger1145]

The clock is a auditory representation of the plague outside even though they can have fun and party that darkness is still looming over them and every hour that passes that darkness looms over them further

[@frankpiccione8571]

Not mentioned is that Prince Prospero was a significant character in Shakespeare's The Tempest .

[@shilohgilbert9770]

Thank you for all of your informative summaries. I would love if you did one for The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe.

[@CarrieHoover]

I'm working on that one now! Thank you for watching!

[@laurencehubbard5240]

Fascinating Poe analyses, not sure if I missed your mention of it but I think Prospero is also an isolated Italian magician in Shakespeare's The Tempest. Both Prosperos creatively build a dreamlike revelry, that comes to an untimely end in both cases. I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on Ligeia or Morella.

[@CarrieHoover]

"Ligeia" is on my list!

[@mysteriumvitae5338]

A few thoughts about the topic 'Red Death and real pathogens': 1. Tuberculosis. Does cause haemorrhage (pulmonary) and could have been a source of inspiration, yes. But probably not the main one. 2. Smallpox. Interesting idea. Indeed, very bad cases of smallpox ( _purpura_ _variolosa_ ) act very much like Red Death: haemorrhage under the skin, purpuric rash, liquid blood leaving these or other orifices and a guaranteed swift death. Just a fulminant, invariably fatal haemorrhagic fever - Red Death as it is. Not the most common form of smallpox, thankfully - but nowhere near unheard of in Poe's days. 3. Septicaemic plague. Yes. Why not? Septicaemic plague could be described as a bacterial haemorrhagic fever. Judging from Bocaccio's description, many of the medieval cases seem to have started bubonic and went septicaemic in a second stage, which ultimately led to death. 4. One forgotten viral disease well-known in Poe's times: yellow fever. Bad cases go haemorrhagic, so it could have been a source of inspiration. However, yellow fever isn't notorious for the _ebolaesque_ (let me use this term here) total full-body haemorrhage Red Death seems to induce. In the typical bad case, most of the visible haemorrhage is 'just' gastric and often not even obvious as haemorrhage (looks like coffee grounds rather than like blood). 5. Ebola. Or Marburg as virtually the same. Surely Ebola was many readers' first association with the disease described in the story. Only that Ebola and Marburg were unheard of in Poe's times. Haemorrhagic fevers as a whole were not, though, but the most notorious ones (for the modern-day person) - were an absolut secret to us back then (and probably thankfully so). However, I feel all of these possible inspirational factors are just factors. Probably Red Death is just the spherical Archetypal Haemorrhagic Plague in a vacuüm. Blood is life, so the most obvious idea for a murderous plague is to be haemorrhagic. Probably humanity came up with the idea as soon as the first now-extinct haemorrhagic diseases emerged in the Stone Age.

[@attiaabderraoufmohamedabda4147]

Thanks to to you i did well on my literature exam , thanks again♥

[@moka9915]

Came across this by chance, I will ace tmw's exam cuz of you ty !!

[@MikeFrench101]

Thanks for the video, I love this story. I'm curious what your thoughts are on the narrator. There's a few I's in this tale and everyone in the story dies. Do you think this is told by the Red Death?

[@davidr.4916]

Hey, thanks for the vid! You do excellent work. Videos like these don't get enough views.

[@nikhil120783]

Thank you so much! I loved your voice and the way you explained it :) This really helped me! A big thanks from Katie! ❤

[@CarrieHoover]

Thank you so much for watching!

[@lazzlazzz8021]

thank you, you teach so much better then my teacher you actually seem interested unlike my old grumpy teacher thank you!

[@Nihilist_Adventure]

Carrie: where intellect and beauty compete neck and neck for my attention. luckily I don’t have to be as smart as her to receive her insight. It’s nice to laze on the couch and ignore the clock myself while watching these Poe Analyses - Sir Simp

[@PsychicsRfake456]

The Vincent Price movie is good too

[@PhantomMagician1846]

I dressed up as "The Red Death" for a Halloween party one year

[@tamarknochel5761]

What a great analysis!!! Thank you for doing this!

[@igcseenglishwithmrmina]

High quality content keep it up gave me so many insights thank you

[@frankpiccione8571]

Great analysis Carrie. I am leading a book discussion of the story in a week and you have inspired me. Not really discussed thougjh is who is the narrator in story- the I or me?. I can not decide whether it is Prospero or the Red Death himself. I understood your reason for bringing up the Belshazzar story fron bible. But Belshazzar is not mentioned in Poe's story , as I recall, so I dont think I will bring it up to my group members in discussion.

[@teacherreadtous4273]

Excellent analysis! Thank you!

[@eileenduret20]

this was so helpful thank you

[@CarrieHoover]

Thank you for watching!

[@benhuether5474]

Do the ghost stories of M.R. James 👻

[@lostsoul2924]

Please please dooooo “spellbound” by Emily bronte analysis pls!!!!!!!! 🥺pretty please.

[@Sahil_Nanda]

thanks for the analysis, really put my head on track for what this story was XD

[@thedudeactual]

Out of everything you say, I appreciate your pronunciation of the word ETCETERA the most...It drive's me insane to hear people say "ecksetruh."

[@farah_nm162]

Dear miss, can you please post a video on Poe's 'The Raven', or Hugh Selwyn Mauberley by Ezra Pound?? Your videos are really helpful for studying literature, and just interesting to know about certain books and poems, especially Edgar Allan Poe✨️

[@coleparker444]

So, is it safe to say the theme or takeaway here is that death is inevitable?

[@christy_yms]

amazing analysis, thank you so much! could you do "the fall of the house of usher"?

[@CarrieHoover]

Yes, I'm editing it now! thanks for watching!

[@martagonzalez6682]

Thank you so much!🤩

[@LauraGuerra-wc3xn]

Help with homework. And test.

[@leonardjames672]

I'd love to hear your thoughts about Lady of Shalott. Thanks

[@benhuether5474]

Do The Outsider by H.P. Lovecraft

[@LauraGuerra-wc3xn]

My class is doing this story. Need lots of help.

[@lesterstone8595]

Wow! Try as they might, no one escapes the passage of time and death according to Poe.

[@helmutschmitt4504]

Cool art.

[@solsanchez7847]

Amazon job!!!

[@hediearjmandi8798]

Hi, thank you for the video. I'd love to hear your thoughts about The bet by Anton chekhov😇

[@aaliyahbindra-cswsouthafri7563]

Helllo gr8 job I love your explanations , part to of requesting for westminister bridge by William Wordsworth . ☺️ Would love if you did it .

[@SuperAfterglow]

Love all your stories,your voice which is beautiful! 😍💜🔥my begging is The Pleasure and the calling by Phill Hogan!I have some difficulty with title‘s translation!would you help me to get it right!☺️much obliged 🥰💜

[@Stars-and-gliters]

Prince Prospero be like: Fine , I'll Do It Myself

[@lurkeyllama2571]

I wanna go to hell just so i can fight the person that invented literature

[@campionpesate4647]

Nah schools are to blame for forcing you to learn literature. otherwise people who enjoy literature will just enjoy it, and those that don't care can avoid it

[@samuelgunter]

i will never understand why anyone would want to analyze stuff like this but people enjoy weirder things

[@samuelgunter]

@@carlospomares3225 well then you explain it

[@robertgallagher5285]

Kind of agree but I have been haunted by the cask of amontillado since a 5th grade teacher for some strange reason read it to us!!!

[@torres870rem]

Are you single?