AIM: What condition of life does the dénouement of “The Masque of the Red Death” reveal?
Do Now: Team Discussion and Class discussion
What influence does an apocalyptic event (devastating plague) seem to have
on the nature of mankind and the collective society?
For the Do Now, we first discussed within our team. My teammates all had a similar answer, people seem to be more cautious of their surroundings and seem to want to distance themselves away from people and keep themselves safe. My other classmates had similar responses, pointing out how a pandemic may reveal the true sides of people. Jason, however, pointed out something interesting. He stated that a pandemic may encourage people to come together and be unified in order to fight against the plague with each other, similar to a reaction seen after the horrible events of 9/11.
Whole class discussion
For the whole class discussion, Ms Peterson had us explain why people tend to turn to investigating when they hear a story or watch a movie. Gabriel made a very good point in the conversation, when people see movies and films, especially when these films are based on true events, people often research the events and try to find more information about it.
Teamwork
The class turned back to their teams, the task being to use detective skills to try and find The Real Ending…
The class was also instructed to post their responses to this padlet, and share their ideas with the rest of the class after all teams have posted their responses.
1) Which ending did you select? Why?
The third ending was unanimously chosen as the real ending of “The Masque of The Red Death.” The wording seems to resemble Edgar Allen Poe’s style more, and is consistent with the rest of the text. The responses agree that the plot twists presented in examples 1 and 2 are unlike Edgar’s style of writing, especially the first one where the brother is who was behind the mask.
2) Elucidate why the ending you chose is the correct ending. Remember to call upon the clues offered in the story to support your answer.
During the class discussion, Kiara explains how the third ending mentions the rooms, which are stressed quite a lot throughout the story. She suggests that this alone is a very strong clue that the third ending is the real ending of the short story, and it helps wrap up the story and points to a repeating idea, humanity trying to avoid death.
Team discussion then Class Discussion
What is your understanding of the concept/role of “fate”?
Fate is something that is destined to happen, and will happen. Our fate is already predetermined and predestined, and we can’t change it. One example of fate can be death. Death is bound to happen, no one can escape it. Ms Peterson added on, mentioning the three fates of Greek mythology.
Could Man vs. Fate be considered a viable conflict of “The Masque of the Red Death”? Explain your response.
Man vs Fate can be considered a viable conflict of “The Masque of the Red Death.” Joey brings up a good point, Prince Prospero locked himself away from the outside world in order to escape the red death, but at the end, it caught up, and the presence of the red death was known.
Provide two examples that support “Man’s fear of death” as a theme of this story.
One example that supports man’s fear of death can be the prince locking him and his friends away from the outside world. The reason he did this was in order to cut off contact with the outside world, where people were dying from this plague. Another example can be how people in the story constantly avoid the black room. Black symbolizes death and the people avoiding the black room can be correlated to them trying to escape death.
Ms Peterson then gave the class examples of symbolism and allegory in “The Masque of the Red Death.”
One prominent example can be that the rooms are in an order of colors representing the stages of life, arranged east to west, where east usually symbolizes a beginning, and west symbolizes the end. The colors in order are blue, which represents birth or infancy, purple, which represents youth, green representing adolescence, orange, which represents adulthood, white which represents old age, and black/scarlet, representing death.
Important Definitions:
Projected Symbolism - The author writes without the intent of making things symbolic, but the reader can draw symbols from the text.
Intended Symbolism - The author writes with the intent to make things symbolic or representative of something else.
Reflection
Throughout the lesson, I’ve learned how important symbolism can be when it comes to understanding a piece of literature, and discovered how much symbolism assisted with being able to find and accurately understand the denouement of “The Masque of the Red Death.” I was able to utilize the symbolism presented in the text via the room colors to come to a realization of how inevitable fate truly is, where we see Prince Prospero trying to close the doors on death in attempts to escape it, but eventually succumbing to its inescapable dominion. The black clock ticking reminds the guests of their mortality, as every second they are closer and closer to death. This can be applied to our lives, we as humans all share the same fate, and we each, like Prince Prospero, walk down the halls of life, passing through each room until we eventually reach the last room and death catches up. I can use what I have learned over the lesson on symbolism to better comprehend future pieces of literature and come to conclusions on the deeper meanings the author provides.
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