The Red Death was a devastating disease which overpowered its victims within thirty minutes. The disease caused bleeding from ones pores, dizziness, sharp pains, and red patches upon the body. After approximately half of Prince Prospero’s court had been diminished by the Red Death, Prince Prospero sought seclusion with 1,000 of his friends, in hopes ...
The ‘Masque of the Red Death’ has multiple meanings, but where can we find a story that encompasses all the others and is complete enough to honor the author’s uncanny unity in this beautiful prose work. It is in this success, that one may touch the genius of Poe himself. It is irrelevant to question ...
Throughout history, art has been used to reflect society.Literature, in particular, is often used to represent the negative side of life. Edgar Allen Poe’s microcosmic “The Masque of the Red Death” is one such work. A story of a group’s attempt to escape the plague that is devastating the countryside, Poe focuses on the ironic, ...
Issues of race are present in many of Shakespeare’s plays. Racial difference is a “central” issue in several of his works, most notably Othello, The Merchant of Venice, and The Tempest (Bennett 209). Much of the debate about this issue has centered on the character of Caliban in The Tempest. Some modern critics see him ...
Last April, while I was in France, the Martinique-born French poet/politician Aimé Césaire died and was given a state funeral. I was a bit surprised by the state funeral attended by French President Nicolas Sarkozy whom while alive Césaire had refused to meet. I was more surprised that Césaire had not already died, as had ...
William Shakespeare was a creative playwright who wrote dozens of remarkable plays. He ingeniously drew from his life for inspiration. This was evident in his final play, The Tempest, into which he imbued his personal experiences. By doing so he was able to highlight the differences between illusion and reality through the actions of his ...
“The Masque of the Red Death”, a fictional story by Edgar Allen Poe tells the story of an epidemic, the Red Death, which plagues an entire country. Throughout this unnamed land, the Red Death inflicts citizens left and right. The ruler of thus stated land, Prince Prospero, possesses no sympathy for his people, yet wishes ...
In 1969 Aimé Césaire published his spinoff of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Césaire’s version, A Tempest, exaggerates and modifies characters in order to illuminate certain of their traits, and to deal directly with questions of colonization raised by Shakespeare’s original work. Specifically, Césaire demonstrates the several types of mindsets common to colonization, and offers insight ...
Elizabeth Nunez’ new novel, Prospero’s Daughter, is set on a small island off the main island of Trinidad in the early 1960s, just as the Trinidadians are struggling to gain their independence from Great Britain. Racial and class tensions are high, as the British try to hold onto their position of authority over the black ...
William Shakespeare’s The Tempest incorporates an array of different characters, conflicts, themes, and other literary tools in its development as a play. The play’s island setting, however, is vital to the framework of the play as a whole, creating the foundation for these literary elements. The island, with its many features, can be viewed as ...