Comparing The Premature Burial And The Masque Of The Red Death

676 Words3 Pages
Part 1 Into the work of The Premature Burial and The Masque of the Red Death, the possible occurrence of death serves as the main theme; it defines the story and the behavior of the characters. Both the primary and secondary figures in the two works show vivid fright of death, “To be buried while alive is, beyond question, the most terrific of these extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality.” (Perkins 309). Death, in the form of being buried alive, is considered to be the personification of human affliction. It is these circumstances that haunt the narrator, ultimately making him to believe that he has been buried living. In "The Masque of Red Death," death manipulates the characters in the same way. Death is a thing that must be kept afar, blocked away from…show more content…
The reality is that death occupies a primary magnitude in these writings. Prospero's and his visitors’ mind-set draw attention to the vision they have of death. It is something that is to be kept very far away. It is a force that is so imposing on the individual that they seek to repress its reality in the expectation that anticipating and hoping it to vanish, it will. Poe displays death as an apparent reality. It is realism leaves a frightening gloom on humans, “who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery?” (Perkins 322). While human beings have different reactions to it, fear in one setting and negative response in another, the characters displays how death is an awe- inspiring force even though it is a situation that overcomes mortal conditions. Wealth and preoccupation is no match for the circumstance of death. Death and its horror create how individuals live their lives and what they do with it. Every sentence contributes to the general impact, dreadfulness, accompanied by subjugating morbidity and nervous anticipation of the horrifying happening, the await of death is

    More about Comparing The Premature Burial And The Masque Of The Red Death

      Open Document