payment page
“This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince’s own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within.”
This passage describes the structure and fortifications of Prospero’s castellated abbey and places a heavy emphasis on the estate’s supposed impenetrability. The quote is also an important example of foreshadowing. The narrator explains that the members of Prospero’s court brought tools so that they could weld the gate shut to prohibit anybody from entering. However, in doing so, they inadvertently turned their site of would-be-salvation into a cage from which they cannot escape. This will become relevant at the end of the text when Prospero and his courtiers are unable to escape the presence of the Red Death.
“There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of
chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire, that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances.”
Here, the narrator describes the curious manner with which the seven colored rooms in Prospero’s estate are lit. Instead of regular lighting, the rooms are illuminated by projected fire through the Gothic stained-glass windows in each room. As a result, the fire’s dancing flames are exaggerated and take on the color of the windows that they placed behind. The lighting display contributes to the fantastical and dreamy ambiance of Prospero’s estate and emphasizes Prospero’s eccentric and unconventional taste.
“But in the western or black chamber the effect of the firelight that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.”
While six of the seven monochrome rooms are beautiful and produce a dreamlike quality, the seventh room is unsettling and produces the stuff of nightmares. In addition to the black velvet interior, the guests are unnerved by the shadows produced by the flames projected through the blood-red windows. The passage describing the black room conveys that the exaggerated red flames generate a hellish and demonic ambiance. This symbolizes the damnation that Prospero and his courtiers must face for their selfish ways.
