3. Meet the Cast Prince Prospero: The Protagonist Prince Prospero is a terrible ruler. Does leaving your peasants to die of the plague while you go and lock yourself up safely in a pleasure palace count as being a good prince in your book? Fortunately, Prince Prospero's got more to his character than that, quite a lot more, actually. He may be a party-animal and maybe even a madman, but he's also a twisted artistic genius. The Red Death: The Antagonist The Red Death may just be the biggest party pooper of all time. He's Death embodied, or something like that. It's not really clear just what he is, since there's no "tangible form" (touchable or solid form) underneath his costume. He doesn't seem to have any real motives besides bringing darkness and decay (and death) wherever he goes, particularly to fools who like to forget their own mortality. That may be why he's never invited to parties. But he always shows up, kills the host, and turns the whole thing into one deadly disaster.

4. Prince Prospero is introduced as the ruler of the "dominions" ravaged by the Red Death. Prospero reacts to the plague by fleeing to his "castellated abbey" with a thousand of his favorite knights and ladies. About six months into his stay, Prince Prospero decides to throw an elaborate masquerade ball in a suite of seven colored rooms. He designed it himself, and it's so weird you might even think he was crazy. Prince Prospero's masquerade is a huge hit. Then, at midnight, the Prince, who's hanging out in the blue room, sees a new face in the crowd. Oh the bad taste! Somebody is dressed up as a victim of the Red Death. Prospero is outraged, and orders the guest to be seized and unmasked. But nobody has the courage to approach him, including Prospero himself. The strange and offensive guest just goes on making his way through the rooms. Prospero finally gets up the courage. He draws his dagger and runs after the interloper. Prospero reaches the Red Death masquerader at the edge of the black room. The masquerader whirls around to face him, and… That's not a masquerader, that's actually the Red Death. Prospero dies. Timeline for Prince Prospero

5. More About Prince Prospero On the surface, Prospero looks like shallow guy. All he seems to care about is pleasure, which is what it means to be a "hedonist." He does not want to spend his time doing anything but drinking, dancing, and laughing, and generally having fun. That makes him an awful ruler because when the going gets tough, Prospero gets going. It makes him seem selfish too: he just does not care about the suffering of his people. He doesn't even want to think about it because that would be too much of a downer. His basic philosophy is summed-up here: “The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The Prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine.” (2) Question: In your mind, what kind of person if Prince Prospero? Is this direct characterization or indirect characterization?

6. More About Prince Prospero Prospero does not want to face death. He deliberately flees it with his followers and tries not to think about it at all, so he can revel in the good times. But his attempt to escape death is doomed to failure: everybody has to die eventually. Prospero's impossible attempt to ignore death and focus only on life's pleasures makes him a classic "fool" figure. Sadly, he learns his lesson the hard way at the end. On the other hand, you might think that there's something heroic about Prospero's foolishness. His refusal to let anything get him down can also seem like a sign of the strength of his spirit. When he's first introduced, he is described by bold and heroic language: "But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious" (2). It's not easy to be happy and "dauntless" (not scared) in the face of a lethal plague. Question: Get into a small group of four. Decide if Prince Prospero is truly a fool or is he a hero? Choose one person to be the reporter.

7. More About Prince Prospero The Half-mad Artist We get various hints in the story that Prospero's the artist type. We also get hints that he may be more than a little odd. The two seem to go together, as in this passage: “The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colors and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric luster. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was not.”(6) It's Prospero's madness that gives him a wild imagination, and that wild imagination is what enables him to create art. The strangeness, even the "grotesqueness," of his artistic visions is what makes them so inventive and compelling. We see that spectacular imagination at work in his castellated abbey, the product of his "own eccentric yet august taste" (2). The abbey is a palace of pleasure, but it's also a palace for art, which is why along with buffoons and wine we also hear the palace is full of "ballet-dancers," "musicians," and "Beauty" (2)

8. More About Prince Prospero Nowhere is Prospero's artistry on better display than in his suite of seven colored rooms, which is entirely the product of his own imagination. Weird as it is, there is something attractive and even beautiful about it. And if the colors do indeed symbolize the stages of human life, as many people think, it is safe to assume that symbolism is intended by Prospero. In fact, there is a sense that everything at the masquerade ball is designed by Prospero, down to the costumes the people are wearing: "it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders" (7). The masquerade is the product of his own ingenious imagination; it is his wild artistic masterpiece. It is a world entirely of his creation and under his control. Maybe that's why there's all the dream language, and why the masqueraders themselves are called a "multitude of dreams" (7).

9. The Red Death The Red Death is not much of a talker, either. In fact, he does not say anything at all. When he shows up suddenly at midnight to Prospero's masquerade, he just starts slowly, silently "stalking" around, scaring people. (Notice how it is always "stalks," never just "walks"?) He doesn't need to do anything to scare people; his "costume" (and the stalking) is scary enough. Corpses with staring dead faces all covered in blood are creepy all by themselves. The Red Death is not popular with Prospero's friends, who have shut themselves up just to avoid it. So everybody is outraged to see some guy show up in a Red Death costume. They just cannot get over their disgust that somebody could show such poor taste until the man in the Red Death costume kills Prospero and gets mobbed and unmasked. Then it turns out he is not a guy in a costume, after all – he is the real Red Death.

10. Timeline for The Red Death The Red Death shows up at the masquerade ball at midnight, sharp. We have no idea where he‘d come from, or how he got in. We don't even know that he's the Red Death yet. So far as we know he's just some guy dressed up in a Red Death corpse costume. Everybody else thinks this appearance is inappropriate. The Red Death stalks around. Prince Prospero demands that he be seized and unmasked, but no one has the guts to follow the order. The Red Death is unfazed and walks right by Prospero, making his way through the suite towards the black room. When he reaches the violet room, Prospero dashes off after him in pursuit, dagger drawn. At the edge of the black room, the Red Death whirls around to confront Prospero, who promptly falls on the floor and dies. A whole horde of other guests jumps the Red Death, but find when they rip of his mask and costume that there's nothing underneath. The guy in the Red Death costume is actually…the Red Death. Everybody dies, the lights go out, and the Red Death holds dominion over all.