The Masque of the Red Death blue room description

Q: What is the significance of one of the rooms being described as a deep blood color?

Likewise, the window panes are scarlet — a deep blood color. This is an obvious reference to the Red Death. When the masked Red Death makes his appearance, he moves rapidly from the Eastern room (symbolic of the beginning of life) to the Western room (symbolic of the end of life).

Edgar Allan Poe lived very close to death. His parents both died before he was 2. His brother died young. His wife died after languishing with tuberculosis throughout their 10-year marriage. It is no wonder that Poe was fascinated with death, and used death as a prominent symbol throughout his career. In the short story "The Masque of the Red Death," death plays a lead symbolic character. But it is the color palette that Poe paints the rooms for the party that is symbolically interesting. He paints for death, and for life.

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The Sequence of Events in the Story
Use of Red and Black
The Other Six Rooms In The Abbey
An Alternate Theory
What color were the rooms in The Masque of the Red Death?
What color was the first room in The Masque of the Red Death?
What is the significance of one of the rooms being described as a deep blood color?
What color was the last room in The Masque of the Red Death?

The Sequence of Events in the Story

In the short story "The Mask of the Red Death", a plague -- most scholars believe that Poe was describing the Black Plague -- was sweeping through a town. Prince Prospero decides to take 1,000 of his courtiers who are not sick and hide away in his abbey so they do not catch the illness, which is always fatal, and can be noticed by the red markings on the victims' face. At the abbey, they get along quite well for a few months, and Prospero throws a ball, decorating each room a different color, elegantly furnished. The last one, which is completely black, has red painted windows and a black clock that chimes the hour. At midnight, a gaunt figure appears, strikes Prospero dead, and reveals himself to be death. All the partygoers realize they have not escaped the red death after all.

Use of Red and Black

Poe's most prolific use of color in the story is his use of both red, which to him symbolized terror, horror, an ending of life; and black, which symbolized death and destruction. The final room, the red and black room, faces west, which represents the setting sun. The mummer -- the figure in the mask representing death -- is dressed all in black. The clock that is forever chiming the hour is black and draped in black velvet, symbolizing funerals. The windows in the room are painted red, symbolizing terror. The illness that kills the characters in the story paints their faces red.

The Other Six Rooms In The Abbey

Several theories exist about the colors in the other rooms of the abbey. There were seven rooms in the imperial suite at the abbey, laid out from east to west, just as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. The rooms are blue, purple, green, orange, white and violet. Each room, according to one theory, represents a stage in the life of man. Blue represents birth, purple represents a transition to royalty, green represents the growth of youth, orange represents strength and maturity, white is purity, and violet -- the last stage before the red and black room representing death in the story -- represents the knowledge and wisdom that comes with age.

An Alternate Theory

There is another theory about the colors of the rooms in Poe's story. Some authors believe that each of the rooms stand for one of the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and vanity. Poe mentions the absence of the seven virtues that align with the seven sins in the short story. Although it is easy to assign envy the color green, the other deadly sins are more difficult to represent in color.

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Writer Bio

Lori Garrett-Hatfield has a B.J. in Journalism from the University of Missouri. She has a Ph.D. in Adult Education from the University of Georgia. She has been working in the Education field since 1994, and has taught every grade level in the K-12 system, specializing in English education, and English as a Second Language education.

I recently wrote an essay on the symbolism of the colors in “The Masque of the Red Death”:

In “The Masque of the Red Death”, by Edgar Allan Poe, the colors of the chambers are symbolic as a spectrum, and some of the individual colors are also symbolic. Some of the meanings are more obvious, while others have to be connected with the story and the placement of the rooms to make sense.

For example, black symbolizes death and evil, and scarlet can symbolize blood. Black is often worn to funerals to represent the recent death, and red is the color of blood. Black combined with red, as in the seventh chamber, represents death, and since blood is the “Red Death’s” avatar and seal, it represents death from, specifically, the “Red Death” in “The Masque of the Red Death”. Because of this, the revelers who tried to escape the “Red Death” confront the “Red Death” in this chamber and are all killed by the “Red Death”, as the colors of the chambers suggest.

As a spectrum, the colors—blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet and black—represent the beginning of the day to midnight. Blue and purple represent the darkness of the night before the sun rises, and green flashes can sometimes be observed during sunrises. Sunrises are often orange, and white could represent the blinding sunlight at noon. Violet can represent sunset, and black represents midnight. The rooms also progress from east to west, and the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. According to this interpretation of the colors, the “Red Death” led the prince from dawn to midnight before killing him. Since the Red Death appears at midnight, this might connect death with midnight.

Finally, blue can represent birth and black can symbolize death, the spectrum of colors representing life. The blue room can be associated with birth because it is the westernmost room, where the sun rises, and the easternmost room, where the sun sets, is associated with death and endings. The colors of the black room can also be associated with death. The prince and the other revelers were killed in the black-and-red room, and the prince started chasing the “Red Death” in the blue room, which could suggest birth. Because the party-goers were trying to avoid death, they avoided the black room, which reminded them of death, the thing they were trying to avoid.

The colors and their placements are symbolical. The blue room represents beginnings—birth and the beginning of the day—while the black-and-red room represents endings—death and the end of the day. In the story, Poe showed that death is unavoidable, even though Prince Prospero and his friends went to such measures to achieve it.

[I’ve noticed that some of my coding doesn’t work for some browsers, so if the font size looks unusually large or something like that, I’m sorry. I’m still working on my coding skills.]

What color were the rooms in The Masque of the Red Death?

Prospero holds a masquerade ball one night to entertain his guests in seven colored rooms of the abbey. Each of the first six rooms is decorated and illuminated in a specific color: blue, purple, green, orange, white, and violet.

What color was the first room in The Masque of the Red Death?

The first room had blue cloth hangings on the wall — and blue were its windows. The second room had wall hangings of that blue-red known as purple, and here the windows were purple. The third was green, and so was the glass of the windows.

What is the significance of one of the rooms being described as a deep blood color?

Likewise, the window panes are "scarlet — a deep blood color." This is an obvious reference to the "Red Death." When the masked "Red Death" makes his appearance, he moves rapidly from the Eastern room (symbolic of the beginning of life) to the Western room (symbolic of the end of life).