Dreary Mr. Poe

Sometimes people don't see eye to eye. I of all people know this. Being a person that generally considers herself to be correct, I have a hard time discussing with someone the idea that I may, in fact, be in the wrong and even worse the person I am speaking with is annoyingly in the right. However I am beginning to make my way and learn how to handle myself in such a situation. One way I have discovered is not to make the conversations you have about a wrong and right person, or in other words, don't try to pit yourself against your fellow conversationalist. This places you in a mode where you are not actually debating anything, you're just mildly milling over an event. You know who isn't very skilled in mildly milling over an event? Edgar Allan Poe. I say this not only because it is somewhat random, but because I have been inclined, (Which here means assigned to read in school) to read a few of his stories. One of them which I was familiar with from a previous year, "The Masque of the Red Death," I was this year asked to analyze, as it is apparently an allegory. This of course led to a minor Google search, because I was in no way sure what in the world Poe was attempting to symbolize with this somewhat gruesome story, however I found that he had somehow skillfully matched this vivid story to an equally gruesome allegory. For those unfamiliar with the Masque of the Red Death it basically consists these following events. In the beginning is introduced a horrible disease which consists of much bloodshed and death within a half hour of the victim. It is within this chaos that a prince, Price Prospero, a very content, happy, and wealthy man invites 1,000 of his friends to a special area he has constructed which they weld shut behind them, hoping to lock the horrors of the Red Death out side the walls. Here the prince and his 1,000 guests are treated with all of the very best luxuries, and eventually about 5 or 6 months in Prince Prospero decides to throw a rather exciting party. This occasion is set up with seven very lavish and multicolored rooms which the prince designs himself and the last of which is a frightening red and black room with a large clock within that everyone avoids. Every hour on the hour the clock tolls and all stand still and tremulously regard it, but aside from that they spend their time unceasingly indulging within the festivities. It is said that Prince Prospero had a love of the bizarre and so encouraged his guests to dress very grotesquely, but when a single man appeared dressed in a burial shroud and wearing a lifelike mask that appeared as the face of a corpse, along with blood down his front he was shunned. The people knew well he was dressed as the Red Death and so disapprovingly avoided him. When the prince came upon the man he became very angry at the apparent mockery of his party and chased the man down upon catching up with him the prince fell dead and the rest of the partygoers caught the man bravely now, at last recognized him as the Red Death himself, and all died that day. The hidden symbols within this story are Prince Prospero representing prosperity and wealth. The Red Death as death, the clock signifying the judgement of death, and the seven rooms signifying life, the last black one the endpoint, or death. The hidden moral of the story? You cannot hide or run from death. No matter how wealthy, prosperous, well to do, no matter what palace of safety you preside in or what countrymen you scorn you cannot cheat the judgement of death, and all will be dealt fairly. A bit morbid, don't you think? Then again, Poe's life as a general was very sad and I can see it accounting for his upsetting stories in which everyone dies. As an infant Poe's father left him, and at age 3 his mother died. He was then taken in by a wealthy businessman, but the two had a very brooding and stormy relationship. When Poe was kicked out of college for gambling debts, he decided not to go back to the man, and to form his own family with his aunt and cousin. A year later, however, Poe married his cousin publicly, although it was thought they married in secret a year previously. His young cousin was two or three years younger than him, but she died 11 years later, leaving behind a very devastated Poe. Only a few years after Poe himself died, finally leaving behind a very unfortunate life, which had undoubtedly fed his famous gothic writings. I must say, it is a bit strange that they would want to feed such depressing things to high schoolers as well as set him on a pedestal as a very great man. For while Edgar Allan Poe's works were very skillfully done, witty, well thought out and incredibly complex, they were also just plain depressing. I have never read a Poe story in which at least half of the main characters do not die in the end. All I am saying is, I think the man could have done with a bit more positivity in his life. For poor Mr. Poe, however it was not to be, Shakespeare, and so was another classic hit with a shockingly and horrifyingly unhappy ending. It is a story like this that makes me optimistic about my life and its progressions, for I am certain that it will end much more pleasantly, I know that I have begun much more pleasantly, and I am confident in my ability to rock the whole living thing  :).