100-word response 1 reference
Turner
This week I am going with a Scholarly Research on Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Masque of the Red Death‘. The author of the article I went with has a very unique take on this story, and one that I tend to agree with. The author of this peer-reviewed study claims that ‘The Masque of the Red Death‘ is Anti-Transcendentalism. Is this controversial? I don’t believe it is, but others may think so, depending on their take of Poe’s story.
The reason the author is calling this piece Anti-Transcendentalism is )because it is dark and speaks of death quite frequently and riddled with horrific undertones. Being that Transcendentalism, in my opinion, can be described as one of enlightenment, the opposite can be said about Anti-Transcendentalism. Most of the imagery in Poe’s story was easily understood, but I wasn’t able to interpret the meaning of the clock until I read the author’s review. “The clock’s unsettling chiming reminds the courtiers that, with every passing hour, they become that much closer to death” (Lopes, 2019). After reading ‘The Masque of the Red Death‘ I initially thought Prince Prospero was merely trying to escape inevitable death by barricading himself and others in his castle. Nothing wrong with that. Then, after reading Sofia Lopes’s account, I was able to decipher a deeper meaning: you cannot escape death.