The Minor Characters
Now let's take a look at some of the minor characters, starting with Prospero's friends. These are the unnamed people who Prince Prospero invites to his castle during the plague. They think that they will be safe in the isolated castle, but they end up facing the same fate as Prospero after confronting the Red Death at the party.
There's also the entertainment. Before Prospero welds shut the iron gates of his castle, he makes sure to hire various entertainers to amuse his friends. He hires ballet dancers, clowns, and musicians. Unfortunately, they also fall victim to the Red Death.
The Setting of the Story
Poe's short story has a fantastic setting, which is where a story takes place. In this case, it's set in a fictional country sometime during the Middle Ages. The descriptions of the plague remind us of Italy during the Bubonic Plague, and the Prince's last name also suggests that he's either Italian or Spanish. Although we have these clues, the specific location of the story is never revealed.
The events of the story take place in Prospero's castle, which is described as being ''deeply secluded.'' After about five or six months of being in the castle, Prospero throws an elaborate masquerade party for his guests. This party takes place in a suite of seven dimly-lit rooms. Prospero gives each room a certain color theme. The first room is blue. It has blue walls, and all of the decorations in the room are blue as well. The other rooms are purple, green, orange, white, violet, and black. The last room is especially horrifying with its blood-red windows and a large clock that rings loudly at the top of every hour. Many of the guests are so intimidated by this room that they avoid it entirely.
Setting Importance
The rooms in the suite are especially meaningful and symbolic. First, the rooms are in a line from east to west. The blue room is on the far east side while the black room is on the far west side. In a way, the different colored rooms represent the stages of life. The blue room symbolizes birth, while the black room stands for death. The blue room is also on the east side, which is the direction where the sun rises. The sun then sets on the west, which is where the black room is. Sunrises represent day or life, while sunsets stand for night or death. Since the black room symbolizes death, it's no wonder why the guests avoided it like, well, the plague.
In his short story, Poe takes a long time describing the scene of the party. He does this because he wants his readers to feel the same sense of fear that the guests would feel. The atmosphere and overall effect of the story would not have been as profound without taking the time to write about the specific details of the setting.
Lesson Summary
In Edgar Allan Poe's ''The Masque of the Red Death,'' the major characters are Prince Prospero and the Red Death, who first appears to be another guest at Prospero's masquerade party. The minor characters in the story are the prince's guests and hired entertainers.
The setting, or where the story primarily takes place is in Prospero's castle in a fictional country during the Middle Ages. Prospero and his guests lock themselves in this remote castle to avoid the Red Death. After several months, Prospero throws a party in a suite of seven differently colored rooms. These rooms seem to symbolize the stages of life, with the blue room representing birth and life and the black room representing death.
