What Does The Clock Symbolize In The Masque Of The Red Death

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You can always fix the things you can control, but certain situations are inescapable and unavoidable. Prince Prospero and the partygoers discover this the hard way. The theme in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death” is that fate is inevitable and you cannot escape it. In the story, the clock symbolizes the time that flies. When Roth describes what the clock does to the people at the party,“it contains a gigantic clock of ebony; whose chiming imposes a start-stop movement on the festive company and whose “life” goes out with the last of the company” (Para.4). .Roth discusses the importance Poe says about the symbolism of the clock. It’s power to control time and the struggles it creates enhances his work. The clock’s power controls how the “life” vanishes before the eyes. The clock also symbolizes death because every time it chimes, it means someone died. So it makes people have fear and suspense because nobody knows when they'll die. As the narrator explains the scenery of the party he says. “And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is …show more content…
Freedman goes on in his argument by saying, “the clocks effect is even more pervasive than that of the room it stands in. For while the revelers may and do-- assiduously avoid the black and blood tinted chamber…”. The clocks presence is even scarier than the blood-tinted room it's showcased in. The clock goes out whenever everybody at the party dies. As the narrator explains the clock he says, “the life of the ebony clock went out that of the gay” showing the life of the people, and how since they died it died because the clock is the time they have left from dying, so it has no more life, since everybody is dead. The placement of the clock and it dying when everybody dies helps make the clock symbolize

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