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Comparing the two stories of Edgar Alan Poe, “The Masque of the Red Death”
and “The Black Cat,” one can easily relate the two by their noticeable features. One of
them is the way Poe applies symbolism to represent deeper meanings. Another is that
these two stories both follow the Gothic traditions such as “grotesque characters”,
“bizarre situations”, and “violent events”. By creating stories like these two, Poe
expresses moral guidance by drawing out the audience's fear with suspension, further
captures the unique beauty of his literature. Overall, both stories perfectly characterize
the Gothic style of Poe and show his exquisite techniques of making implications in
his works.
First, both tales that will be discussed depict death in different characters. “The
Masque of the Red Death” itself is an allusion to the Black Death. The Red Death, the
major antagonist in the story, is set up as the peculiar character in this story. Poe
describes the Red Death as a humanlike form of an epidemic disease like the bubonic
plague, which spread quickly and kills quickly. According to the text, the author
amplifies the horror by adding: “No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous.”
It identifies the fear of death in every mortal being's mind which is dwelling in Prince
Prospero. In addition, the arrival of the Red Death in the prince's masquerade
symbolizes him and the masqueraders being infected by the disease. The Red Death
“was tall gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave.” His
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appearance matches the trait of “grotesque characters” in the Gothic traditions as well
as the qualities of the Death.
In “The Black Cat,” the criminal who is narrating the story is an eccentric person,
for the reason that he had gone mad and killed his wife and his pet. The name of the
narrator's first cat, Pluto, is referring to the god of death in Greek (Roman) mythology.
The god, Pluto, is known for ruling the underground and captivating people for all
eternity. This naming of the character, again, directly shows one of the biggest themes
frequently appearing in Poe's works: the fear of death. This symbol makes Pluto the
cat became a cause to the criminal's grudge and to his mental illness by poking all
men's deepest fear. The presence of the second black cat, later on, displays the
omnipresent trait of a god and the inevitable decline of the main character, which was
haunting the narrator and filled him with accumulated annoyance due to the thought
of death.
Prince Prospero locked himself with thousands of people in an abbey to escape
from the Red Death. An interpretation could be: the abbey is representing a barrier to
block all sorts of thoughts of death. One can picture the abbey as a Gothic architecture
from Poe's description, “this was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation
of prince's own eccentric yet august taste.” The dictions make it easy to visualize how
odd but luxurious the building is and further shows that the prince is actually a
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coward living in his own castle. Next, the author describes the seven suites in blue,
purple, green, orange, white, violet, black in the abbey, in which masquerades were
held. The seven colors of the seven chambers could be interpreted differently.
Generally, the seven colors signify the seven stages of life. However, one can also
reasonably infer the colors as emotions of Prospero. The masqueraders are seen as
Prospero's mental state or sentiment when they enter a room, Prospero will feel a
specific sense of the thing that the color is given meaning to. For instance, if the
masqueraders are in the blue room (first), they would feel a sense of gloominess as
they were at the beginning of the party and haven’t forgotten the upcoming danger.
Another piece of evidence supporting this interpretation is that the crowds always
avoid entering the black room, which represents the fear of death that is eventually
inevitable.
On the other hand, the way the narrator of “The Black Cat” escape from his fear
seems to be unknown, however, we can tell that when the cats in the story tried to get
close to him, he tended to avoid them. Death is not the only thing that the narrator is
running away from. Black cats are regarded “as witches in disguise,” and witches are
often seen as the servants of the Devil. Therefore, another interpretation is that
keeping Pluto as a pet is simultaneously making deals with the Devil. The idea that
Pluto may be a witch was reminded by the narrator's wife and had been a potential
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that led to the main character's spiritual destruction. Pluto wasn’t wicked. However,
the thought of him being a sign of witchcraft is like a seed growing in his mind,
fertilized by his annoyance of his frequent company, added to his hatred toward Pluto.
The action of killing Pluto is just like the main character trying to break the contract,
so another cat came, making the “deal” unavoidable. These kinds of occasions only
appear in the distinct Gothic works of Poe. Since having a contract with the Devil is
never a great thing, the narrator's soul was eventually taken by the Devil after he
murdered his loved ones.
In “The Masque of the Red Death”, Poe implies that everything that happens in
the story is just a dream. Through the visualization of the story, the unforeseeable
rooms, and the repetitiveness of the plot suggest that the entire story is purely the
imaginations of Prince Prospero. The ebony clock in the black chamber is especially a
support to this claim. Normally, people dream of things that seem to be wonderful but
often being interrupted by the “wakeup call” and struggle to shift back to reality. The
clock is like one of the “wake up calls” that pulls people back to real life.
In contrary, speaking of things that haunted the storyteller of “The Black Cat”,
the nightmare is another element that drove him crazy. While the word “nightmare”
wasn’t directly used in the story, the narrator did mention that the fear and guilt were
“arousing [him] from sleep”. According to Germanic folklore, “mare” is a creature
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that suffocates people during their sleep. The sleeping disorder of the narrator is
giving him increasing stress and deteriorated his sickness, which also contributed to
his downfall.
The author illustrates how the Red Death tortures people in cruel method with
the descriptions that “There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse
bleeding at the pores, with dissolution.” Poe strikes the readers in the beginning with
these horrifying symptoms of the disease, in order to add violence to the settings. The
author points out that “blood” is the “avatar” of the Red Death. This shows that the
Red Death will slowly penetrate through the victim's body, then comes out and infect
another person. Poe never talks about where exactly the Red Death came from, so that
asserts the idea that the Red Death is everywhere, further shows how useless it is to
escape from it.
The way Pluto was tortured and killed is emblematic as well. The narrator used a
pen knife to cut out Pluto's eye. This action also symbolically implies that Pluto's
view of his master had been sharpened. Furthermore, the loss of vision often
characterizes a change of perspective, seeing things that we don’t see previously. In
“The Black Cat,” Pluto finally realized that the narrator is an ill-temper, and
cold-blooded person, therefore started to avoid him. The violence contained in the
torments in both stories correspondingly exemplifies a Gothic tradition.
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Both stories have things that keep reminding either the main character or other
people of some threats. In “The Masque of the Red Death”, the ebony clock, which
was mentioned previously, is a reminder of the approaching death. Every time when
“the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the
more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or
meditation.” When the masqueraders were reminded of death during the ecstasy of the
party, they stop, and panic, but later carry on with laughter and awkwardness. They
wanted to conceal their fear towards death to also try to forget about it.
The second cat of the criminal, in “The Black Cat”, is also a symbol of revenge.
Even though the second cat appears to be intimate with its new master, its similarities
as Pluto is so obvious that makes the narrator think of his previous pet. The second cat
also creates an image “of THE GALLOWS”, because of the white fur on its body
looking like the scar of hanging which makes the narrator feel more guilt than ever.
The characters of both stories encountered situations that foretell them of their
resolution, but they kept ignoring and dodging those notifications.
The elements of Gothic style were vividly shown in the two stories. By going
deep into the symbols, one can discover the various motifs which are delivering
messages to the readers. The comparison of these two works of Poe demonstrates that
even completely different stories are composed of similar fundamentals. By utilizing
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Gothic skills, Poe makes our brains generate the most motivating and powerful
emotion, fear.
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